Minor Gripes with Games We Love

[EvilAnagram]

I love games. You love games. I'm willing to bet that everybody loves games. Coming together with friends and family to collectively build a story, compete against each other, or overcome obstacles is fundamentally fun. It's simply built into human nature.

That said, let's complain about games we love.

Because being dissatisfied with what we have is also part of human nature.

I'll start:

There is an upgrade card in X-Wing Minis that allows your pilot to open himself up to attacks in order to hit his opponents just a little bit harder. For some reason this is not called, "I Have You Now!"

[Lethologica]

Isn't this, like, the entire purpose of this sub-forum?

[TheEmerged]

You mean the second purpose of the internet in general, I think.

In any event, I'm game :)

Dominion. Without the attack cards, it falls into the trap of "playing Solitaire together". But with the wrong/too many attack cards, the game bogs down into a slough where you don't win so much as suck less than the other players.

Last Night On Earth. Without the expansions, those "Just What I Needed" cards trivialize a couple of the scenarios. WITH the expansions, you quickly get to the point where those scenarios seem unwinnable without them.

Conquest of Planet Earth. The expansion does a good job of correcting the complaints that the base game is too easy, and adds some really neat (not to be confused with merely powerful) Space Stuff cards. BUT the expansion adds a lot of Event cards without a adding any that let you draw Space Stuff, meaning you're less likely to draw those neat cards...

Awful Green Things From Outer Space. The randomization of the weapon effects makes them game interesting and keep it from being a "puzzle" \ solvable. It also makes the game so random that it quickly overrides player skill & essentially trivializes decision making.

Small World. Seriously, I have all of the "no box" expansions except the leader one. Why does it seem that the Seafaring Hobbits have almost a 50% chance of showing up?

Settlers of Catan. "And I'm calling this now - anybody that makes an obvious euphemism loses a turn. We've had a copy of this game in the group for so long our first copy was in German, we've heard them already."

Hare and the Tortoise. "Bob, the kids at the table are young teenagers now, can you knock off the "The Wolf goes, HOWWWWWWL" jokes before I have to smack someone for asking what the fox says?"

TimeLine. "Anybody? Please? I'll handicap myself two cards... Three cards? Come on, guys, you know I didn't *really* minor in History in college, right?"

[Hiro Protagonest]

Um... the soundtrack for the primitive era in Chrono Trigger was kinda weak.

There are really only two amazing stories out of the five in Katawa Shoujo (if that counts as a game), though the rest are still better than pretty much any other visual novel. Of those two that are amazing, the choices in Lilly's are poorly implemented.

For serious platformer players, most of Cave Story is just a bit too easy, though it's not a super-easy game. Then Blood-Stained Sanctuary goes in the complete opposite direction, and while it's technically an "optional" area, it is required to get the not-depressing ending. I think Last Cave (Hidden) is at just about the right difficulty for Pixel's friends who told him it was too easy.

The Megaman Battle Network series was really carried by its combat system; it's easy to pick apart most of the stuff outside combat. A personal gripe, though? Lan isn't Roll. He's the sibling and supporting character to Megaman, and how great would it have been to have a female protagonist who has a speaking role? There's just one problem with the idea - Lan's an airhead, so making him a blonde girl would've invoked double standards.

In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Boggly Woods had a pretty boring aesthetic and I didn't like the elder in that chapter. And in Twilight Town, there was a lot of backtracking. I also got stuck on the chapter where you infiltrate the x-naut's base, and only beat the game after starting a new playthrough years later, but I figured out exactly where I went wrong, it was very unlikely and I could've gotten out of it if I had known how (but there's no way I would've gotten in the right mindset from the old save).

[Wardog]

I recently got XCOM in a Steam sale.

I just wish I could call in strafing runs on downed UFOs, or research an "anti-EMP cannon" for my interceptors. I wouldn't care if all the alien tech on the UFO gets destroyed, as long as all the Sectoid Commanders and Etherials were killed.

[Knaight]

I absolutely adore almost everything about Puerto Rico. The part where the set up involves getting a ridiculous number of pieces exactly where you need them? Not so much.

Dominions 3 remains my gold standard for 4x games, and it is just vastly better than about anything else at what it's good at. The micro can get pretty bad though, almost entirely because of the UI being the result of a long string of bad decisions.

[Mobius Twist]

I wish Jason Brody would stop going "Ugh blargh" after the 50th boar he skins with his machete. We get it dude-bro, but you've been shooting guys in the head for a week now. Time to act the part.

[Eldan]

Well, steam claims I have put 700 hours into Europa Universalis IV. I could probably list a whole page of things that annoy me about that game.

[Eldan]

Dominions 3 remains my gold standard for 4x games, and it is just vastly better than about anything else at what it's good at. The micro can get pretty bad though, almost entirely because of the UI being the result of a long string of bad decisions.

Oh yeah! That's a good example, though I'm not sure it's minor. For the uninitiated, in this game you play a god and build armies of soldiers and monsters and wizards and send them against other gods in round based combat. THere's also tons of other, complicated stuff. In the beginning, you recruit a few dozen soldiers in your capital province and send them out. Okay.

In later turns, you recruit dozens of soldiers and heroes each in a dozen provinces, then give them each marching orders towards where your armies gather, then collect your gems, then give orders to your heroes... so much busy work.

Like, if I could combine any two games, giving the improved automatic recruitment system from Sins of a Solar Empire to Dominions (where the new troops automatically go to a rally point you told them to go and are automatically built until resources run out) would be one of the first things

[Domino Quartz]

I think that Terraria is an amazing game (it's my favourite one at the moment), but it has a few problems:

1. Lack of a proper tutorial. You basically have to go to the wiki if you want to know how to do anything (or even know to do certain things). The Guide's become more useful in that he tells you what a material can be used to craft if you give it to him, but you still might not know what you need to make a certain thing, or that it even can be made, if you lack any of the materials used to make it.

2. The amount of grinding you have to do to get certain things. For various ores (and some other crafting materials), you sometimes have to go on long, boring journeys mining through the crust before you find what you're looking for. For some random drops, you have to go to very specific areas where a particular enemy that drops the item you're looking for spawns, and kill hundreds of the things to have a decent chance of getting the item you're after - all the while killing the other random enemies getting in your way. I feel that the rarity of a random drop should be inversely proportional to the rarity of the enemy that drops it.

[IthilanorStPete]

I've got a number of issues with Paradox's games (Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 2), but the biggest is the lack of truly bilateral treaties. You can't concede some territory while annexing other bits of land, for example. The outcome of any war is either one side getting some concessions or status quo ante bellum. Adding in opportunities for negotiation would add a lot to the games, especially EU4, which focuses the most on foreign relations and diplomacy.

[Landis963]

I think that Terraria is an amazing game (it's my favourite one at the moment), but it has a few problems:

1. Lack of a proper tutorial. You basically have to go to the wiki if you want to know how to do anything (or even know to do certain things). The Guide's become more useful in that he tells you what a material can be used to craft if you give it to him, but you still might not know what you need to make a certain thing, or that it even can be made, if you lack any of the materials used to make it.


Minecraft has the exact same problem, and is even more unforgiving of mistakes, especially in the early game (the infamous "first night"). It definitely restricts the "mold the world to your will" freedoms until you have the ability to spend long periods away from your castle gathering supplies.

[shadow_archmagi]

Minecraft has the exact same problem, and is even more unforgiving of mistakes, especially in the early game (the infamous "first night"). It definitely restricts the "mold the world to your will" freedoms until you have the ability to spend long periods away from your castle gathering supplies.

Minecraft at least it's usually less about "I need the Penguin Feather so that I can make Sea Boots! Penguins only spawn in super rare ice caves once every 219 days, and there's a 1 in 340 chance they drop the feather" and more just "I wanted to build a railroad from my house to my friend's house, and we are 3,000 tiles apart, so I will need a lot of iron. It takes about five minutes to find a good cave, and then it takes about a minute to find ore in a cave, another thirty seconds to mine it... I average about three ore per minute, so this project will take... five hours."

[Landis963]

Minecraft at least it's usually less about "I need the Penguin Feather so that I can make Sea Boots! Penguins only spawn in super rare ice caves once every 219 days, and there's a 1 in 340 chance they drop the feather" and more just "I wanted to build a railroad from my house to my friend's house, and we are 3,000 tiles apart, so I will need a lot of iron. It takes about five minutes to find a good cave, and then it takes about a minute to find ore in a cave, another thirty seconds to mine it... I average about three ore per minute, so this project will take... five hours."

True, but it's still rather telling that a good percentage of Minecraft mods include some method of doubling ores.

[Eldan]

I've got a number of issues with Paradox's games (Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 2), but the biggest is the lack of truly bilateral treaties. You can't concede some territory while annexing other bits of land, for example. The outcome of any war is either one side getting some concessions or status quo ante bellum. Adding in opportunities for negotiation would add a lot to the games, especially EU4, which focuses the most on foreign relations and diplomacy.

Oh yeah. Which is one reason why it's a lot more fun in multiplayer with four or five friends. You get long, long, negotiations and can actually make trades.

[GolemsVoice]

Old but gold: I adore Warcraft III, but I WISH you could control more than 12 units at any time.

[Hunter Noventa]

Final Fantasy Tactics That horrible slowdown on all spellcasting they added to War of the Lions. Why. Just why.

[Cyber Punk]

Hmm, lemme see...

Dishonored. I loved the game very much, but one reason I'm glad for Dishonored 2 is the fact that we'll be able to hear Corvo's and Emily's voice, even while we're playing them. I strongly dislike playing a first-person game with a silent protagonist. That's one reason I preferred Crysis Warhead to Crysis 1, for starters.

[danzibr]

Final Fantasy: broken mechanics (vulnerabilities and such). And visiting the earth cave place twice.
Final Fantasy II: so much grinding to get your abilities up to snuff.
Final Fantasy III: no benefit from mastering multiple jobs.
Final Fantasy IV: no willful party switching.
Final Fantasy V: the plot.
Final Fantasy VI: Kefka as a villain.
Final Fantasy VII: the snowy place before the northern crater.
Final Fantasy VIII: using your best magic makes you weaker. And the enemies level with you.
Final Fantasy IX: Kuja. And Zidane.
Final Fantasy X: the amount of grinding to perfect your sphere grid.
Final Fantasy X-2: the nitpickiness of getting 100%.
Final Fantasy XI: it's an MMO.
Final Fantasy XII: Vaan.
Final Fantasy XIII: the linearity didn't bother me so much, but there are no cities to explore and people to talk to.
Final Fantasy XIII-2: the way the story's told. Like it's Serah's diary.
Final Fantasy XIII-3 (not the official title but whatever): this game is great. No complaints here.
Final Fantasy XIV: it's an MMO.
Final Fantasy Tactics: the enemies in the random battles level with you, but in the story battles they don't. WHY!?

[Typewriter]

DDO(Dungeons & Dragons Online) was my favorite MMO, pretty much the only MMO I ever really played, and then they changed the mechanics and ruined the game for me.

I love Destiny, especially since the most recent expansion, but they really need to clean some stuff up. No in game text chat system or group finding. 95% of the story is located in Grimoire cards that cannot be accessed in game. RNG controls too much. The game requires farming for progress but limits your farming activities to daily/weekly activities, etc. etc.

Warframe is one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, but it has absolute trash for a trading system. The game desperately needs an auction house. It would also benefit from a period of time focused on cleaning existing content up rather than creating new content, but that is not the focus of the game.

Every Bioware game that allows for 'decision' points always winds up with one or two 'important' decisions that feel like they are the only ones that really matter.

Mass Effect 3s ending.


Final Fantasy VI: Kefka as a villain.

You don't like Kefka? I don't think I've ever seen someone say that - everyone seems to think he was the perfect villain.

[danzibr]

You don't like Kefka? I don't think I've ever seen someone say that - everyone seems to think he was the perfect villain.
Indeed I do not. Not only is he silly, but he almost completely lacks a backstory. There's just one (missable) line about him being the first magitek dude, but the process drove him crazy.

Really, he's just too damn silly for my taste.

[Hogwarts9876]

I wish the mechanics of Pokemon were way more transparent, and that people would actually tell you about IVs and EVs and Natures and the like ingame.

[shadow_archmagi]

The "find an AI" questline in Borderlands Pre-Sequel.

It's not a particularly bad questline, but instead of a series of steps towards your goal, each objective is just another attempt at making the last one work.


You have to get onto a ship. They retract the bridge. You find the controls. They blow it up. You find the button to pour liquid methane onto lava to make a NEW bridge. You don't have enough. You go get more liquid methane. It gets stuck. You find the pumping station. You freeze the lava and make it across. You're inside the ship. Suddenly, forcefields everywhere. You have to find the generator...


I don't understand why "We have to do THIS level to get to the level that's meaningful to the story!" is such a popular theme.

[MCerberus]

In Fire Emblem, getting support rates up involves a lot of weird artificial play, almost as bad low level power grinding. Plus the game prioritizes unit kills over tactics in a game with perma death... so getting a new recruit up past useless involves every red unit in the game zerging towards it trying to 1-hit kill.

Can anyone remember a Bethesda game without a memory leak?

[Crow]

Eve Online. Fantastic PvP. Horrible metagame. Background checks to get into corporations, multiboxing and the things that come with that. Ugh. Can't make myself go back.

[Androgeus]

Morrowind, probably my favourite game. The combat system is just terrible.

[OrcusMcP]

I've got a number of issues with Paradox's games (Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 2), but the biggest is the lack of truly bilateral treaties. You can't concede some territory while annexing other bits of land, for example. The outcome of any war is either one side getting some concessions or status quo ante bellum. Adding in opportunities for negotiation would add a lot to the games, especially EU4, which focuses the most on foreign relations and diplomacy.

Truth right here, but I think it's a function of the Paradox AI being very stupid at certain things and therefore can't be trusted lest the game break(EU4 example: AI won't sell land, won't buy land). If Paradox ever solved this problem, their games would be perfect.

I don't think it's unsolvable, as the Civ5 AI is quite willing to negotiate trades in a peace deal, though it's unclear what its calculations are, and the EU4 AI is pretty good at handling the transfer of occupations that was recently introduced.

[Cyber Punk]

It has probably been said before, but Planescape: Torment.

I loved the game. Awesome writing, awesome choices, godawful combat.

[danzibr]

It has probably been said before, but Planescape: Torment.

I loved the game. Awesome writing, awesome choices, godawful combat.
Another gripe... now I really love Torment, but I didn't like the magic or the thief stuff, *and* none of the endings felt quite satisfactory. And the lack of end-game content.

[Amaril]

Undertale. My new favorite game of all time, but only really good if you walk into it without any awareness of its most important selling point, which is that...

you can get through it without ever killing anyone.

[Derjuin]

Undertale. My new favorite game of all time, but only really good if you walk into it without any awareness of its most important selling point, which is that...

you can get through it without ever killing anyone.


There's a special ending for doing that. The game changes entirely if you decide to kill everyone, and there's a special ending for it too.


I, myself, have found nothing to gripe about in Undertale at all :smallredface:

However, I DO have a gripe about Ancient Domains of Mystery: the star sign system. Some star signs are rarer than others, and thus, much more powerful. So much more powerful that they can dramatically alter gameplay - see Candle and Cup starsigns. However... most of the other starsigns are absolute trash, and some are only good for very specific characters, a la Salamander and Book.

Sometimes it feels like a chore, rolling up the Candle starsign so I can try a low-power class/race combo to see if I can actually win with it (like Grey Elf Farmer).

I love everything else about ADOM, though.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Metal Gear Solid (the first Solid one) was a pioneering masterpiece that completely changed the way video games were developed and played. It even had some pretty great graphics for 1998, but no one has faces and it's really distracting if you want to replay it today without finding the Gamecube version (which has its own problems.)

[shadow_archmagi]

JRPG style games with respawning/random encounter enemies in puzzle areas.

I JUST WANT TO FIGURE OUT THE SLIDING BLOCK PUZZLE, ZUBAT. I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR GARBAGE.

[danzibr]

Breath of Fire III: Lack of end-game/post-game content. You can continue after the end, but there's little point. There are no optional superbosses. Not much of a complaint... BoFIII is a damn good game.
Breath of Fire IV: All the dragon transformations look the same.

I'd mention BoFV (Dragon Quarter), but this thread is about games we love. Also I've never played the first 2 (on my to-do list).

[Typewriter]

Breath of Fire III: Lack of end-game/post-game content. You can continue after the end, but there's little point. There are no optional superbosses. Not much of a complaint... BoFIII is a damn good game.
Breath of Fire IV: All the dragon transformations look the same.

I'd mention BoFV (Dragon Quarter), but this thread is about games we love. Also I've never played the first 2 (on my to-do list).

Stupid Dragon Quarter. That's one of the only games I've had strong enough opinions on to write a review about it. Hallway simulator that grants you power then punishes you for using it? Oh, you want to enjoy the game and be a dragon? That's cool but please start over because you had too much fun.

[cobaltstarfire]

It'd be real nice if I could sort gear by ability in Splatoon, and for splatfests to have more than one song. Also would love to have a more explicit notification when a friend is playing the game. The UI also has issues that really shows nintendos inexperience/boneheaded-ness with online play.

I'm going to steal the one about EV's/IV's in pokemon being more transparent too, at least it's getting easier to see/control those factors with each generation.

The only gripe I have for Ecco the Dolphin (on the genesis) is that the third installment never got made, and never will since the mood of the series isn't what Sega is looking for these days.

[Alyka]

Dominion: that mtg prevents me from getting friends to actually play it. Also it is a little to interactive between players unless attack heavy and defense light.

Agricola: Really thoroughly made and executed. But having to constantly reset the huge board is terrible.

SW KOTOR: Favorite game ever, but the sequil added much needed contents and then failed to be fully developed.

WOW: expansions started simplifying things, people are a pain to keep happy.

[Mobius Twist]

people are a pain to keep happy.

This thread is a testament to that.

[Aotrs Commander]

Mass Effect 3s ending.

I'd agree with you, but I don't view that as a "minor" gripe...!



Why yes, I AM still bitter...!


I wish the mechanics of Pokemon were way more transparent, and that people would actually tell you about IVs and EVs and Natures and the like ingame.

Yeah - but they are getting stadily better at that. In Gen V onwards at least you can see your EVs to some degree and it's now considerably easier to fiddle with IVs in the late/post-game to the point that even I am prepared to do some IV breeding. Still a way to go, though.


JRPG style games with respawning/random encounter enemies in puzzle areas.

I JUST WANT TO FIGURE OUT THE SLIDING BLOCK PUZZLE, ZUBAT. I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR GARBAGE.

Oh ye gods, THIS.

I don't even try now, if I go into a dungeon, I load out with a bazillion max repels.



KotR 1: lack of ability to switch weapon sets. Yeah, sure, it doesn't stop you swapping stuff in combat, at least, but it's a bit of a pain to have to swap a dual-wilder's pistols to melee weapons all the time; and it's not like the feature didn't already exist in prior Bioware games!

TIE Fighter: The over-reliance on randomisation in having to wait for things to fall EXACTLY your way to be able to get all the bonus goals. And the nasty tendancy for it to go "nope, that ship is jumping to FTL, so even if you clearly hit it as it left, it isn't allowed to drop below 1%, no bonus goal for you ahaha." Especially when combined with "destroy all enemies" goals verses the "enemies all run away" in the expansion mission tendancy. There's nothing worse than doing everythng right and getting 95% through a hard mission to fail a goal because of something completely out of your control (given you can't be everywhere at once). TIE Fighter is one of my top favourite games of all time, but on a bad day it treats you like an abused spouse...!

[danzibr]

For one of my all-time favorites, River City Ransom, most of the food in the game isn't very good. Like... highly cost inefficient. After playing it a couple times through you learn there are like 3 places to go with worthwhile food.

But man is that a stellar game.

[theMycon]

Lunar:SSSC changed Nash from the badass triple-agent he used to be into a simpering lovestruck fool; changed the villain's motivation to generic evil overlord instead of "hard to disagree with the ends, but the means are clearly evil"; and made a host of other small changes that just don't work with the sequel.

Warframe's internal documentation ranges from "misleading" to "not there", and the wiki is so full of spoilers and tricks that it feels like cheating.

There is no way you could get the best ending to Suikoden 2 without a guide. Sure, you might get 2 or 3 of the (5? 6? more?)* completely distinct requirements for it through hard work and chance, and they contribute to minor changes you can easily notice if you're looking for them, but all of them? And if it's your first time/you don't remember/piece together that a minor detail changed because of what you did?

*
Have all 108 characters recruited before you go to Rockfort castle
Have Nanami's defense at least... whatever number that is
Pick either conversation choice before the arrows start flying
Go back to meet Jowy where you said you'd meet up after it's all over
Don't kill him
Don't let anyone die-for-real in a war battle?
missing anything?


Arcanum drops the "half-ogre conspiracy" quest-line when it seems like it had come so close to a satisfying conclusion. Also, there's no balance whatsoever. Mages dominate at all times. Diplomancers are useless unless a quest is designed with them in mind, in which case they sidestep hours of questing with a few words.



Breath of Fire III: Lack of end-game/post-game content. You can continue after the end, but there's little point. There are no optional superbosses. Not much of a complaint... BoFIII is a damn good game.
Breath of Fire IV: All the dragon transformations look the same.

I'd mention BoFV (Dragon Quarter), but this thread is about games we love. Also I've never played the first 2 (on my to-do list).

Don't play the first one. I played them all when they were new (well, relatively, like within 2 years), and the first two did not age well. The first one is a bad game with occasional moments of brilliance (and a soundtrack that still stands out as fabulous), that I put up with because I was just a kid.

The second one is still pretty good, but... use this translation (http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1384/). The official one is exceptionally bad. This is all in all good, though it traded out my single favorite line for a bland one.

Also, they'll make you appreciate Dragon Quarter, but not because of quality. Dragon Quarter is a pretty good dungeon crawler, it's just not like any previous Breath of Fire game. But, once you play the first two, you'll see BoF 3 felt unmistakably a little different from the first 2; BoF 4 was very different from anything before, and BoF Dragon Quarter was almost unrecognizable as a BoF game- just like 6 looks like it's Ragnarok Online with dragon transformations.

Playing them all, you'll see the change as an "accelerating evolution" of the series, rather than a sudden bizarre shift. And playing DQ through, you'll realize it's short enough that the dragon timer doesn't matter unless you go out of your way to make it matter. My first run got me to the first boss I suspected was the final boss at 20-some%, so my second run I used it on every boss and got to the actual final boss at 75%. It's more a storytelling device than anything else.

Although: just use it to double your attack power 3 or 4 times, then smash the boss. Its effects are multiplicative.

[Crow]

SW KOTOR: Favorite game ever, but the sequil added much needed contents and then failed to be fully developed.

Dude, I love KotOR 2. It's better than the original. I play with the restored content mod though. Companion interactions are better and meaningful to the story. The story itself is more intricate, and explores themes which are deeper than the original. I like the original. It was a great ride, but KotOR 2 explores more interesting themes IMO.

[tigerusthegreat]

Eve Online. Fantastic PvP. Horrible metagame. Background checks to get into corporations, multiboxing and the things that come with that. Ugh. Can't make myself go back.

If I didn't already have an office job I could play eve....I really love every aspect of it but can't make that sort of time commitment.

[Aotrs Commander]

Dude, I love KotOR 2. It's better than the original. I play with the restored content mod though. Companion interactions are better and meaningful to the story. The story itself is more intricate, and explores themes which are deeper than the original. I like the original. It was a great ride, but KotOR 2 explores more interesting themes IMO.

I'm enjoying KotR so much I'll probably go straight onto KotR 2 (for only the third replay - but the first one where I will dig out of the restored content mod.)

[danzibr]

Lunar:SSSC changed Nash from the badass triple-agent he used to be into a simpering lovestruck fool; changed the villain's motivation to generic evil overlord instead of "hard to disagree with the ends, but the means are clearly evil"; and made a host of other small changes that just don't work with the sequel.
Interesting. I'm in the process of playing the original (having played SSSC).

There is no way you could get the best ending to Suikoden 2 without a guide. Sure, you might get 2 or 3 of the (5? 6? more?)* completely distinct requirements for it through hard work and chance, and they contribute to minor changes you can easily notice if you're looking for them, but all of them? And if it's your first time/you don't remember/piece together that a minor detail changed because of what you did?

*
Have all 108 characters recruited before you go to Rockfort castle
Have Nanami's defense at least... whatever number that is
Pick either conversation choice before the arrows start flying
Go back to meet Jowy where you said you'd meet up after it's all over
Don't kill him
Don't let anyone die-for-real in a war battle?
missing anything?

Ahhh I loved the true ending. But ya know, I can totally understand that as a gripe. Getting the true ending for a game should be difficult on your own, but not damn near impossible.

Don't play the first one. I played them all when they were new (well, relatively, like within 2 years), and the first two did not age well. The first one is a bad game with occasional moments of brilliance (and a soundtrack that still stands out as fabulous), that I put up with because I was just a kid.

The second one is still pretty good, but... use this translation (http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1384/). The official one is exceptionally bad. This is all in all good, though it traded out my single favorite line for a bland one.

Also, they'll make you appreciate Dragon Quarter, but not because of quality. Dragon Quarter is a pretty good dungeon crawler, it's just not like any previous Breath of Fire game. But, once you play the first two, you'll see BoF 3 felt unmistakably a little different from the first 2; BoF 4 was very different from anything before, and BoF Dragon Quarter was almost unrecognizable as a BoF game- just like 6 looks like it's Ragnarok Online with dragon transformations.

Playing them all, you'll see the change as an "accelerating evolution" of the series, rather than a sudden bizarre shift. And playing DQ through, you'll realize it's short enough that the dragon timer doesn't matter unless you go out of your way to make it matter. My first run got me to the first boss I suspected was the final boss at 20-some%, so my second run I used it on every boss and got to the actual final boss at 75%. It's more a storytelling device than anything else.

Although: just use it to double your attack power 3 or 4 times, then smash the boss. Its effects are multiplicative.
Thanks for that. I'll have to add it to my summer to-do list.

Dude, I love KotOR 2. It's better than the original. I play with the restored content mod though. Companion interactions are better and meaningful to the story. The story itself is more intricate, and explores themes which are deeper than the original. I like the original. It was a great ride, but KotOR 2 explores more interesting themes IMO.
I loved KotOR 2 the whole time *except* for the end. Not just the ending, but like everything leading up to the end. Can't place my finger on it... just didn't like it.

[Aotrs Commander]

I loved KotOR 2 the whole time *except* for the end. Not just the ending, but like everything leading up to the end. Can't place my finger on it... just didn't like it.

Possibly the last planet basically being a solo dungeon crawl of not particularly much interest? I know that's what I considered KotR 2's main flaw (which was, of course, Lucasart's fault for rushing out the door instead of giving Obsidian the time to do the job RIGHT.)

[Crow]

If I didn't already have an office job I could play eve....I really love every aspect of it but can't make that sort of time commitment.

The time commitment is one of the things I forgot to mention. I don't have the time for that game anymore. :D


Possibly the last planet basically being a solo dungeon crawl of not particularly much interest? I know that's what I considered KotR 2's main flaw (which was, of course, Lucasart's fault for rushing out the door instead of giving Obsidian the time to do the job RIGHT.)

Yeah, the execution wasn't the best. However I liked how the ending had each character finally being forced to face their own personal demons. It gave the whole ending a sort of dream-like feel.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Xenoblade Chronicles - I love the crap out of it, but if they are going to do the whole "tank character" thing..can they do it so more than one character can do it reliably? Since Shulk makes Glass Joe look like Superman.

[GloatingSwine]

Xenoblade Chronicles - I love the crap out of it, but if they are going to do the whole "tank character" thing..can they do it so more than one character can do it reliably? Since Shulk makes Glass Joe look like Superman.

They do. Dunban and Reyn. Reyn is the only obvious beefstick tank, but Dunban is also good at holding aggro and not being hit as long as you keep him in light armour.

Though you don't necessarily need a tank character, because disabling enemies with stagger and knockdown so they can't attack anyway is more effective.

[danzibr]

Xenoblade Chronicles - I love the crap out of it, but if they are going to do the whole "tank character" thing..can they do it so more than one character can do it reliably? Since Shulk makes Glass Joe look like Superman.

They do. Dunban and Reyn. Reyn is the only obvious beefstick tank, but Dunban is also good at holding aggro and not being hit as long as you keep him in light armour.

Though you don't necessarily need a tank character, because disabling enemies with stagger and knockdown so they can't attack anyway is more effective.
I prefer Dunban as a tank.

Also, for gripes, the plot gets real whacky at the end. Not just wacky, but whacky.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Dunban keeps aggro very poory for me, and I said more than one :P I was counting Reyn, and the stuns/knockdowns are just not reliable and long lasting enough for me, especially on bosses, when I don't have Reyn tanking on bosses the plan generally devolves into "hold all Menado Arts for countering special attacks" and that just gets boring!

[TurboGhast]

Ace combat series: Nothing in the game gives indication of how many points you need to S-rank a mission except actually S-ranking the mission, so it's hard to tell if I've done enough to get it.

Edit: Just remembered Project Sylpheed has this issue too.

[Typewriter]

I'd agree with you, but I don't view that as a "minor" gripe...!



Why yes, I AM still bitter...!



I don't really rage about video games - I've never been one of those people who complains about server availability or bugs. I buy my DLC with a smile. I trade in things to Gamestop understanding that it's not the best value. I'm regularly disappointed in the quality of things but I understand it's my own fault for buying games without waiting for reviews or other things. Yada yada yada. The gist of what I'm saying is that, while I play a LOT of video games, I've never been one of those people who gets upset at 'typical gamer things'.

But Mass Effects 3s ending... that broke me. After ME2 came out I refused to give an opinion on it stating that while the gameplay was fun it was nothing but build up to ME3 so I couldn't judge it until ME3 comes out. That was my go to opinion for the 2 years between those games. Then ME3 came out and it was a little shaky at first, but it got good. It got interesting. It got downright phenomenal at points.

And then that ending. I remember Luke Smith said in an interview that you're not going to get to the end and have to choose between endings A, B, and C... and then that was exactly what happened. It was just so... bad. I mean everything. Star child out of nowhere, nonsense exposition, and then just.... space magic. I never bought into the indoctrination theory but I understood why people did. I tried to come up with explanations that filled in holes that the ending provided. I spent more time on discussion boards talking about the ending to that game in the weeks after it resolved than every other game I've ever played combined.

I stopped going to Ars Technica (and have not been back since) because the video game writer at the time said that people upset with the ending were just entitled whiners. I hate the word 'entitled' - it's such a copout way to dismiss the opinions of people without actually having to make an argument. I wasn't entitled - I didn't think I deserved anything, I didn't demand a refund, I wasn't one of the ones crying out for the extended ending. I just said it was bad, it left me feeling empty.

So yeah, I'm also a bit bitter still. My wife played through the game series recently and I got to see the extended ending. It made things a bit better. I'm still not happy. I still don't understand how Luke Smith got away with that blatant lie regarding the endings. But at this point I consider it minor. It's long since gone, they tried to make it better. I still can't bring myself to play through the game a second time (or five more times seeing as how I had six characters ready for import).

[Hunter Noventa]

I still can't bring myself to play through the game a second time (or five more times seeing as how I had six characters ready for import).

Not to mention the multiplayer is probably completely dead, which would make it very difficult to get the full ending spectrum, as it were.

[Typewriter]

Not to mention the multiplayer is probably completely dead, which would make it very difficult to get the full ending spectrum, as it were.

At launch the requirements were a bit steeper than they are nowadays, but even then I was able to get the 'best' ending just by importing a fairly completed character and making good choices. The requirements have only gone down since then, plus the DLC all adds a bunch of easy to get points. My wife had all the endings available to her at the end of her playthrough and she's much less of a completionist than I am and she definitely didn't touch the PvP.

[GloatingSwine]

So yeah, I'm also a bit bitter still.

I'm also still bitter, but it's not a "minor gripe" for me. It's "Bioware are dead to me".

[Typewriter]

I'm also still bitter, but it's not a "minor gripe" for me. It's "Bioware are dead to me".

I've continued to be a follower of Bioware, though the only thing they've put out that I bought since ME3 was Dragon Age: Inquisition. That being said I don't think I'd jump in blind by another game that Casey Hudson played a part in.

NOTE: Earlier I said Luke Smith was the guy who lied about endings in ME3 - it was actually Casey Hudson I was thinking of, not Luke Smith. Luke Smith works at Bungie and I play a lot of Destiny so that name was stuck in my head by accident.

[Dienekes]

Dragon Age Inquisitions: The endless fetch quests and gathering unimportant crap, and the flash over substance style of combat.

Starcraft 2: The dependence of Protoss on the Mothership Core to deal with all the stuff their normal units should be designed to deal with. The more annoying macro mechanics that don't really aid in the fun part of the game instead of training you to push a certain button every few seconds. Larva Injects and MULEs being the worst offenders (though LotV seems to be fixing this a bit). And Vipers, I just really hate having to deal with Vipers, nothing like a unit that can counter every single one of the large expensive units in the game.

Any game that makes me be online to play it. I mean it makes sense for some games, like WoW (not that I play that game anymore). But so many others have no reason to be online, and I prefer playing offline most of the time anyway.

[ryuplaneswalker]

The thing about ME:3's ending that drove me up a wall more than anything is that the starchild was provably wrong, I busted my rear end making a peace between an AI species and a Fleshy Species, one of my favorite characters DIED to make it happen.

[GloatingSwine]

The thing about ME:3's ending that drove me up a wall more than anything is that the starchild was provably wrong, I busted my rear end making a peace between an AI species and a Fleshy Species, one of my favorite characters DIED to make it happen.

Apparently being tonally and intellectually inconsistent was part of Bioware's "artistic vision".

[Dienekes]

The thing about ME:3's ending that drove me up a wall more than anything is that the starchild was provably wrong, I busted my rear end making a peace between an AI species and a Fleshy Species, one of my favorite characters DIED to make it happen.

Honestly, that it was wrong was one of the very few things I was ok with. This was a machine that had thousands of years of data to show that the universe is only one way. But here comes Shepard with that one shred of hope that it could possibly be wrong. And then the question is asked how much are you willing to bet on that shred of hope?

What gets me is that question wasn't really a focus of the games after the first one, only being a minor detail of the setting, and only really involving two races. And all possible foreshadowing for the big reveal was done through a DLC you had to buy (Leviathan) or a bonus character that a good portion of the fanbase, myself included, would not have access to (Javik).

[Douglas]

I've only played Mass Effect 1 so far, but it really struck me as illogical nonsense when Tali vociferously insisted that synthetic races have no use for organics. The geth are intelligent sentient beings with approximate technological parity, saying that they have no use for organics makes about as much sense as saying that turians have no use for asari. It's a self-perpetuating false assumption, synthetic/organic conflict is inevitable only because everyone believes it is inevitable.

I can understand that an AI with carelessly designed priorities might become inimical if organics become the easiest source of raw materials it needs for its goals, or something like that, but anything intelligent enough to qualify as a true general AI should be capable of recognizing and following every reason for friendship and cooperation that an organic alien race would have.

[GloatingSwine]

Honestly, that it was wrong was one of the very few things I was ok with. This was a machine that had thousands of years of data to show that the universe is only one way. But here comes Shepard with that one shred of hope that it could possibly be wrong. And then the question is asked how much are you willing to bet on that shred of hope?


Except that the game never acknowledges the prior events of the narrative which demonstrate how wrong it is occurring, and they are not relevant to any of the solutions on offer.

Shepard doesn't offer a shred of hope that the starbrat might be wrong, only that its previous methods are ineffective now so pick a colour for your space magic to fix everything.


I've only played Mass Effect 1 so far, but it really struck me as illogical nonsense when Tali vociferously insisted that synthetic races have no use for organics.

Tali is a teeny bit biased. Now, the one true AI you meet in the game (in a sidequest) does technically try and kill you, but only because it knows for sure that you will kill it, it was actually trying to leave peacefully and secretly until you clomped along.

[Douglas]

Tali is a teeny bit biased. Now, the one true AI you meet in the game (in a sidequest) does technically try and kill you, but only because it knows for sure that you will kill it, it was actually trying to leave peacefully and secretly until you clomped along.
Of course she's biased, it's hard to be objective when her entire race nearly got wiped out by synthetics. What bugs me is how the entire rest of the galaxy is in unanimous agreement with her on the subject.

[Dienekes]

Except that the game never acknowledges the prior events of the narrative which demonstrate how wrong it is occurring, and they are not relevant to any of the solutions on offer.

Shepard doesn't offer a shred of hope that the starbrat might be wrong, only that its previous methods are ineffective now so pick a colour for your space magic to fix everything.

Oh yes, the ending is still very, very bad. My only comment is that I'm fine that the Starkid is wrong. That we don't get to tell it we think it's wrong, or use the Geth/Quarian peace to throw back at it are all weaknesses of a very bad ending.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Oh yes, the ending is still very, very bad. My only comment is that I'm fine that the Starkid is wrong. That we don't get to tell it we think it's wrong, or use the Geth/Quarian peace to throw back at it are all weaknesses of a very bad ending.

Yeah that is the part that annoys me, especially since my pilot and my Ship's AI are probably off snogging while I am getting lectured about how Organics and AIs will never co-exist.

Star Child : "Organics and In-Organics can never Co-Exist

My Shepard : "Yeah, well my engine room security cams say differently" *show security footage of Jack and Edi shagging*

Star Child : "OH GOD WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THAT! I am going to blow Star Chunks!"


Moving on

Chrono Trigger- the lavos boss rematches, the stats not being upped so that the old bosses aren't just one shot fests.

[Cristo Meyers]

Chrono Trigger- the lavos boss rematches, the stats not being upped so that the old bosses aren't just one shot fests.

That bothered me less than having to farm those little petty critters in Prehistory just to be able to upgrade my gear. The guy over there will take my gold for stuff, why not you armor-selling guy?

It's the only place that does that barter system and it just doesn't add anything except an excuse to grind slowly pounding seven kinds of hell out of that Nu.

[Lethologica]

Yeah that is the part that annoys me, especially since my pilot and my Ship's AI are probably off snogging while I am getting lectured about how Organics and AIs will never co-exist.

Star Child : "Organics and In-Organics can never Co-Exist

My Shepard : "Yeah, well my engine room security cams say differently" *show security footage of Jack and Edi shagging*

Star Child : "OH GOD WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THAT! I am going to blow Star Chunks!"
brb shipping this

(it's joker btw)

[Typewriter]

Yeah that is the part that annoys me, especially since my pilot and my Ship's AI are probably off snogging while I am getting lectured about how Organics and AIs will never co-exist.


Personally I'm not sure I think the star child is wrong. Yes, I made peace between the Geth and the Quarians. Yes, EDI and Joker are having a bit of fun.

But how many times has the starchild seen this? How many times has he seen a romance between synthetics and organics that ended with a synthetic torn apart by the emotional loss of a short lived organic that winds up in bloodshed or war. Perhaps the Starchild has seen synthetics invited into council like environments during times of peace only to have the synthetics eventually decide they know better than organics and turn the universe into a synthetic controlled 1984? Or perhaps the Geth eventually create a new, more advanced, AI that decides that peace shouldn't exist between organics and synthetics? Perhaps the peace will lead to more AI's being created by organics for various purposes and the Geth will decide that they don't approve of this.

The starchild has existed for a long time, and he has likely seen these scenarios played out time and time again - and they always end the same way. Why should he think that this time will be different? Shepards current 'peace' is likely nothing more than a momentary pause before synthetics and organics once again fight it out.

For the sake of the story I love the fact I was able to bring peace to the Geth and the Quarians, but when I step back and analyze the situation from a firm sci-fi perspective I think the Starchild is correct.

[GloatingSwine]

But how many times has the starchild seen this? How many times has he seen a romance between synthetics and organics that ended with a synthetic torn apart by the emotional loss of a short lived organic that winds up in bloodshed or war. Perhaps the Starchild has seen synthetics invited into council like environments during times of peace only to have the synthetics eventually decide they know better than organics and turn the universe into a synthetic controlled 1984? Or perhaps the Geth eventually create a new, more advanced, AI that decides that peace shouldn't exist between organics and synthetics? Perhaps the peace will lead to more AI's being created by organics for various purposes and the Geth will decide that they don't approve of this.

Perhaps monkeys will come flying out of Shepard's butt and break all the reapers by pressing all the buttons?

It's not presented in the game, so it's completely irrelevant to the discussion.

[Typewriter]

Perhaps monkeys will come flying out of Shepard's butt and break all the reapers by pressing all the buttons?

It's not presented in the game, so it's completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Those specific situations aren't in the game, but the starchild does say that he's seen this many times before and it always ends the same way. My point wasn't "Maybe one of these specific instances is what happens" so much as it is "Isn't it sort of arrogant for us to think our accomplishments are greater than everything this borderline-eternal entity has witnessed"?

EDIT:
Think about it from a different perspective. The starchild is a father and his 15 year old son(Shepard) comes home from school and tells him that he's going to drop out of high school and get married. He says he has a plan to get them by. The father says that he's seen this sort of behavior before and that it never works out. The son responds by saying "it's worked for us so far!". Is the relationship absolutely doomed? No, it could work out. It probably won't, but it could.

The difference here is that we're not talking about the differing perspectives of a 15 and a 45 year old - we're talking about an ancient being that's seen time repeat itself hundreds(thousands!) of times and always seen the same things. When Shepard shows up and is all, "We made peace with the Geth", it doesn't matter - it doesn't prove anything.

EDITEDIT:

The Leviathan of Dis refers to events nearly a billion years passed. That likely means between 18,000 and 20,000 cycles. In the Leviathans time they saw multiple races/species develop AIs and get wiped out. So each cycle potentially has multiple AIs showing up and messing stuff up. In our own cycle we have the Geth as the major known force, but there have also been other AI crisis that occurred.

So the Starchild has been watching this same thing over and over again and then Shepard shows up and says, "I made peace with the Geth and the Quarians" - the only response the Starchild should have given is an eye roll.

[GloatingSwine]

Even in the game as it exists the borderline-eternal entity is now specifically obsolete because we are here.

That's the whole point of the ending, that shepard renders the starchild null and now does something different.

Except it wasn't a different thing that was tonally and intellectually consistent with the rest of the game because it was written by idiots.


Even were that not the case though, it would still be bad writing because it is tonally and intellectually inconsistent and handwaves away the entire plot so far. If that was the theme they wanted for the ending, then one hundred percent of the Geth and Quarian storyline, and of Edi's storyline from all of the trilogy would have to be entirely different than what it was.

Stop trying to paper over the cracks in the terrible writing with fan justifications, the more you do that the more terrible writing you'll get given because game writers will learn that no matter how badly they do their job the fans will make excuses for them instead of giving them proper criticism. If the writers wanted you to know about all the times in history when AI's had seemed nice but turned out not to be they needed to put that in the games. Not wait for someone on the internet to use it as an excuse for them.

They didn't, it's not in the game, it never happened. The ending is inconsistent and bad.

[Typewriter]

Even in the game as it exists the borderline-eternal entity is now specifically obsolete because we are here.

That's the whole point of the ending, that shepard renders the starchild null and now does something different.

Except it wasn't a different thing that was tonally and intellectually consistent with the rest of the game because it was written by idiots.


Even were that not the case though, it would still be bad writing because it is tonally and intellectually inconsistent and handwaves away the entire plot so far. If that was the theme they wanted for the ending, then one hundred percent of the Geth and Quarian storyline, and of Edi's storyline from all of the trilogy would have to be entirely different than what it was.

Stop trying to paper over the cracks in the terrible writing with fan justifications, the more you do that the more terrible writing you'll get given because game writers will learn that no matter how badly they do their job the fans will make excuses for them instead of giving them proper criticism. If the writers wanted you to know about all the times in history when AI's had seemed nice but turned out not to be they needed to put that in the games. Not wait for someone on the internet to use it as an excuse for them.

They didn't, it's not in the game, it never happened. The ending is inconsistent and bad.

I don't disagree that the ending is terrible and bad, and if you think that I disagree with that you must have missed the majority of what I've said up until this specific topic got brought up. What I am saying is that, of all the complaints about the starchild (ranging from his existence onward) is that one I don't agree with is people complaining that he should acknowledge that we proved him wrong - because we did no such thing. We made a peace (during wartime with a greater threat to all of us) that has, as of this moment in the game, lasted what? A week? A peace that could end at any moment? A peace that the starchild has likely seen before? Doesn't he even remark on it at one point saying "it won't last" - what makes you think he says that - plain arrogance or the fact that he's probably seen it before.

The intent of the ending is to say that you're alliance with the Geth doesn't matter - you even have one ending option that eradicates the Geth (with a warning that Synthetics will rise again) or the 'good' ending where the differences between synthetics/organics are neutralized.

Again - I'm not saying this is good writing, I'm just saying that if I walked up to a billion year old intelligence and argued with it about something it considers a constant based off of my limited human experience I would likely be wrong.

EDIT: One specific point I meant to respond to but forgot:

If the writers wanted you to know about all the times in history when AI's had seemed nice but turned out not to be they needed to put that in the games.

It is in the game. The starchild tells us as directly as possible that synthetics always kill organics despite the scenario. They refer to it as a constant. Does the Starchild really need dialogue that goes, "Yeah, I saw a few organic/synthetic romances - they always end poorly still - just like every other situation as I've already mentioned. Yeah, that thing with the Geth/Quarian - those peaces are cool but they never last. I mean I already mentioned that, but I'll specifically respond to that again".

[GloatingSwine]

The intent of the ending is to say that you're alliance with the Geth doesn't matter - you even have one ending option that eradicates the Geth (with a warning that Synthetics will rise again) or the 'good' ending where the differences between synthetics/organics are neutralized.

In order to say that though it actually has to be there.

The ending has nothing to say about the Geth, because they were too lazy to state check whether you even have them to feed it in.

The intent of a text can't be addressed based on confabulations, only on things which are really in it.

[Dienekes]

In order to say that though it actually has to be there.

The ending has nothing to say about the Geth, because they were too lazy to state check whether you even have them to feed it in.

The intent of a text can't be addressed based on confabulations, only on things which are really in it.

This one I have to agree with Typewriter on. A good writer does not have to spell out every minor detail, they can assume that a player/reader/watcher has at least 2 brain cells to rub together and can piece together a few things from context clues. Such as Starkid not thinking that any alliance between the Geth and organics will last base off prior experience.

That does not mean the ending is good, there are still a load of other problems with it (not even getting the chance to argue your case is one). But this isn't really one of them.

Now, that it's all out of left field and doesn't fit tonally with the rest of the games, or the major problem of the series being one that has not been a focus since game one, those are legitimate problems with the ending.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It is in the game. The starchild tells us as directly as possible that synthetics always kill organics despite the scenario. They refer to it as a constant. Does the Starchild really need dialogue that goes, "Yeah, I saw a few organic/synthetic romances - they always end poorly still - just like every other situation as I've already mentioned. Yeah, that thing with the Geth/Quarian - those peaces are cool but they never last. I mean I already mentioned that, but I'll specifically respond to that again".

Yes. He tells us. He doesn't show us. Our experience directly contradicts what he's saying and he doesn't provide actual evidence.

[GloatingSwine]

This one I have to agree with Typewriter on. A good writer does not have to spell out every minor detail, they can assume that a player/reader/watcher has at least 2 brain cells to rub together and can piece together a few things from context clues. Such as Starkid not thinking that any alliance between the Geth and organics will last base off prior experience.


People are picking things up from context, except the "context" they're using is the entire rest of the game.

It is literally half of the entire game up to that point sorting out the Geth/Quarian thing, and two games worth of development for a party character, it absolutely needed to be addressed properly in the ending, especially given what they tried to do with it.

It is not at all something that the player should be expected to accept based on context, because the context is 100% evidence to the contrary, that's what makes it bad.

[Aotrs Commander]

KotR 1 Swoop racing.

Not only do the controls suck, the detection suck, but I STRENOUSLY OBJECT to the "you failed" unskippable cutscene taking longer than the actual fracking race (especially on Manaan)! If I fail, I want to get straight back to it, not wait for thirty seconds of faff before I can do it again! That's fracking tedious.

[Lethologica]

On top of everything else...
(a) The Geth-Quarian union has shades of Synthesis. By denying that the Geth-Quarian union can last, Starchild would be admitting that civilization is not ready for Synthesis.
(b) Refuse demonstrates that the Reapers have it within their power to force the cycle to continue. Starchild has no reason to consider himself obsolete based only on the fact that Shepard reached him.
(c) Neither Control nor Destroy actually affects the calculus of synthetic-organic relations. Starchild even admits that Destroy won't do anything, though he still provides it as an option. So Starchild has no reason to consider himself obsolete based on the premise that Control/Destroy solve anything.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Personally I'm not sure I think the star child is wrong. Yes, I made peace between the Geth and the Quarians. Yes, EDI and Joker are having a bit of fun.

But how many times has the starchild seen this? How many times has he seen a romance between synthetics and organics that ended with a synthetic torn apart by the emotional loss of a short lived organic that winds up in bloodshed or war. Perhaps the Starchild has seen synthetics invited into council like environments during times of peace only to have the synthetics eventually decide they know better than organics and turn the universe into a synthetic controlled 1984? Or perhaps the Geth eventually create a new, more advanced, AI that decides that peace shouldn't exist between organics and synthetics? Perhaps the peace will lead to more AI's being created by organics for various purposes and the Geth will decide that they don't approve of this.

The starchild has existed for a long time, and he has likely seen these scenarios played out time and time again - and they always end the same way. Why should he think that this time will be different? Shepards current 'peace' is likely nothing more than a momentary pause before synthetics and organics once again fight it out.

For the sake of the story I love the fact I was able to bring peace to the Geth and the Quarians, but when I step back and analyze the situation from a firm sci-fi perspective I think the Starchild is correct.

Actually, the starchild has seen this..never. The Leviathan's might have seen it a few times but the Leviathan's created the Star Child just to solve the problem "permanently", and going off the results they didn't exactly keep a watchful eye on the thing after they set it in motion and didn't program the darn thing well because it went with the worst solution possible. "Turn Fleshies into Giant Robots in a jar before the make the AIs"

Which actually begs the question why would the Leviathans allow their slaves enough freedom to research eating AIs.

[Typewriter]

People are picking things up from context, except the "context" they're using is the entire rest of the game.

It is literally half of the entire game up to that point sorting out the Geth/Quarian thing, and two games worth of development for a party character, it absolutely needed to be addressed properly in the ending, especially given what they tried to do with it.

It is not at all something that the player should be expected to accept based on context, because the context is 100% evidence to the contrary, that's what makes it bad.

The context is what should drive your characters motivation and inspiration. If you get to that point and you think, "Screw the starchild I know I'm right" then go for it. But to expect this thing which has been monitoring and controlling the universe for a billion years to agree with you is absurd. I'm all for disagreeing with him - but disagreeing doesn't make it right.

This is an example of what makes the storytelling terrible - at no point in trilogy did I ever think, "The entire purpose of this series is organics vs. synthetics", and then the ending just sort of drops on us that that's all there is to it. Then they tell us a bunch of stuff (including that what we've seen is a load of hooey in the grand scheme of things) and then they just sort of... move on.

Yes it's terrible, both in concept as well as execution, but my point is not that it's good writing it's that - within the framework of what we were given - we're arguing with a creature beyond our understanding based off of a very limited perspective. Why should our incredibly narrow view change the outlook he's derived from a billion years of existence?

[Aotrs Commander]

Yes it's terrible, both in concept as well as execution, but my point is not that it's good writing it's that - within the framework of what we were given - we're arguing with a creature beyond our understanding based off of a very limited perspective. Why should our incredibly narrow view change the outlook he's derived from a billion years of existence?

Personally, I would say it is because ISN'T a creature beyond human understanding, it's a construct of a human writing a video game.

Very poorly.

ME3's ending is so badly done that no in-universe attempts at justification MATTER. There no sense of disbelief to suspend. I can see the man behind the curtain, and no matter how much he says "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain", the fact he's woven his curtain from cling-film and three bits of string he found under the dumpster means there is simply no way of being able to see it the way he wants me to see it. All I can see is him, dancing around, growing ever more desparate in his attempts to convince me he isn't there.

When you, as an author of a story, fail so badly as to make me not angry at your characters, but angry at YOU for your ineptitude, you have failed the absolute most basic premise of your endeavor on every level.

[Typewriter]

Personally, I would say it is because ISN'T a creature beyond human understanding, it's a construct of a human writing a video game.

Very poorly.

ME3's ending is so badly done that no in-universe attempts at justification MATTER. There no sense of disbelief to suspend. I can see the man behind the curtain, and no matter how much he says "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain", the fact he's woven his curtain from cling-film and three bits of string he found under the dumpster means there is simply no way of being able to see it the way he wants me to see it. All I can see is him, dancing around, growing ever more desparate in his attempts to convince me he isn't there.

When you, as an author of a story, fail so badly as to make me not angry at your characters, but angry at YOU for your ineptitude, you have failed the absolute most basic premise of your endeavor on every level.

I sort of agree with you, but I think it's important to recognize the story for what it is. People complain that the ending was dumbed down and/or that it was of poor quality. Then they make arguments that make it sound like they don't understand the ending. Now, if I tell you a story and you come away with it thinking that I oversimplified things but you summarize it for me and come up with completely wrong points it makes it hard for me to know exactly what I did wrong. Obviously I didn't oversimplify it too much because you still didn't get it. Perhaps my story was just fine, but I should have been clearer on some points. Stuff like that. ME3 has enough things terribly wrong with it's ending that there's no need to reach for extras. When someone says that it was wrong of the StarChild to not acknowledge their success with the Geth/Quarians they're reaching. You could say it was poorly handled, poorly written, a nonsense copout, all sort of things - but in the context of what we're given does it make sense? I think so - space god says X, our personal experiences leads us to believe Y - should our experiences cause space god to change his opinion or admit his faults... realistically no. But when people focus on things like that which are, in my opinion, incorrect it makes it hard to take any of the criticism they are providing.

Another thing that used to bother me, for example, was people talking about how everyone was going to starve to death without the mass relays. This was another example of people making a big deal out of things that really weren't concerns unless you made them. The ships traveled at such fast speeds that (if I remember the math I did at one point correctly) it would only take 18 years to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other. It's fairly safe to say that with stores of food, a few mining ships to gather fuel, etc. etc. that the various species would have made their ways home with a few pit-stops along the way. Again, this is stupid, it's poor writing - it required me to pull up the travel speeds of various ships and calculate the speeds at which they travel. Most importantly it means everyone has a 10-20 year journey ahead of them to retire after the war. Congrats Krogans, you can breed again, LOL in 20 years! Dumb dumb dumb bad poor writing. But if people just say, "lol everyone starves, dumb", then they're missing the point and it weakens the rest of the criticism.

I could write pages about what was wrong with the ending - hell, I could probably write pages specifically about what I considered about the whole Geth/Quarian/Synthetic/Organic thing. But my opinion is that it is, as presented, internally consistent - even if it does clash with some of the ideals brought forth up to this point. My complaints are on the quality of the writing, of the concepts in general.

[Lethologica]

Hmph. Leviathan makes Starchild's actions into a billion-year experiment on preserving life despite organic-synthetic conflict. Therefore, the Geth-Quarian conflict and resolution had new elements contributing to the experiment's resolution. Which isn't to say peace with the Geth would last, but "seen it all before" can't be the only counterargument because the story is entirely set up to make this something Starchild hasn't seen before. Otherwise the experiment would not be resolved.

Ultimately, saying that we should believe whatever Starchild says because it's a billion years old would apply to anything Bioware wrote, so there's no value in consistency with that narrative. And ME3 ending doesn't even get credit for establishing that Starchild is a billion years old, because it was established in the previous games. ME3 ending only gets credit for not randomly saying Starchild is only a million years old. That's all the "internal consistency" of Starchild is worth.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I sort of agree with you, but I think it's important to recognize the story for what it is.

The problem is, that the story was two different things, the first two games and 90% of the third was "Making choices that affect the final product, what forces you have trying to bring the universe together to prevent everyone's excintion"

the last 10% of the third game is "You can't win against them without me, and I will only give you 3 solutions to the problem and nothing you say or did will alter my deal"

[Alent]

All this Mass Effect angst. Mass Effect's fans have made me glad I've never played the series. :smalleek:


In all the miles I've walked in One Way Heroics, I have never, not once, seen a Friendship stone.
Tactics Ogre WoF is on the wrong platform. My PSP is dead. :(
Valkyria Chronicles. Very Hard Skirmishes are made assuming you'll abuse that one mechanic's Invincible trait.
Star Ocean 2 doesn't have anything harder than Indy Unlimited Universe mode to beat up. :(
Tearring Saga's Forced linear gameplay on Ryunan's route.
Berwick Saga's 100% RNG driven injury/cripple/capture system takes the fun out of doing the bounties.
Thracia 776 has some dummied characters from Seisen that really should have been in the game. (Especially the Subunits.)
Phantasy Star 4 starts crashing around the time that you start hunting Sandworms for XP.
Lufia 2's two or three maps with corrupt tilemaps that required blind stumbling.
Lufia 1's foul water duration glitch. 65535 steps of battle.
Megaman X has a fakeout ledge in Boomer Kuwanger's stage above the Heart Tank that looks like it can be reached with Charged Shotgun Ice but isn't reachable. (It actually is possible to reach it, but it isn't possible using a real controller due to strict frame button press requirements.)
Wild ARMs 2 made Anastasia a real person instead of a legendary mashup of Jack, Rudy, and Cecilia from WA1. It would've been cool to get to the "meet Anastasia" phase of the game only to meet the three heroes from the first game.
Minecraft still doesn't have an official first party Mod API.
Blaster Master's Zone 2 music is god awful and I never want to hear it again.
Tales of Vesperia. blahblahblahTIDAL WAVEblahblahblahTIDAL WAVEblahblahblah...

[Typewriter]

Hmph. Leviathan makes Starchild's actions into a billion-year experiment on preserving life despite organic-synthetic conflict. Therefore, the Geth-Quarian conflict and resolution had new elements contributing to the experiment's resolution. Which isn't to say peace with the Geth would last, but "seen it all before" can't be the only counterargument because the story is entirely set up to make this something Starchild hasn't seen before. Otherwise the experiment would not be resolved.

Ultimately, saying that we should believe whatever Starchild says because it's a billion years old would apply to anything Bioware wrote, so there's no value in consistency with that narrative. And ME3 ending doesn't even get credit for establishing that Starchild is a billion years old, because it was established in the previous games. ME3 ending only gets credit for not randomly saying Starchild is only a million years old. That's all the "internal consistency" of Starchild is worth.

I don't think we have to believe/agree with him, but I personally find his argument fairly compelling. What I don't think would make sense is him agreeing with us.


The problem is, that the story was two different things, the first two games and 90% of the third was "Making choices that affect the final product, what forces you have trying to bring the universe together to prevent everyone's excintion"

the last 10% of the third game is "You can't win against them without me, and I will only give you 3 solutions to the problem and nothing you say or did will alter my deal"

Again, it's poorly written - no disagreement here. There are tons of things I'd wished they'd done differently or where I feel that changes were made that ruined other aspects. The inclusion of the starchild was a deus ex machina of the highest magnitude - which is impressive because the very concept of the Crucible was in fact a deus ex machina. Like, they literally needed the key(catalyst) to finish work on the first deus ex machina and it turned out that the key was an even bigger one. It's just... gah. And then there's the fact that the child makes a big deal out of us being the firsst organic there and the entire time I'm just like, "Would he have been this impressed if a janitor had gotten lost and wandered here?" or "What if a duck found it's way here on the magic space elevator?"

That being said - going back to what I said before - I believe in giving credit where credit is due. There are certain aspects of the ending that I think work from a certain perspective. It's an interesting sort of tragedy that the middle, 'good', ending is essentially a final realization of what the StarChild was doing all along. He was combing organics with synthetic materials to make Reapers. This ending does that on an individual scale for everyone. Is it dumb space magic wackiness? Yes. Is it also strangely fitting? I think so.

And then there's the illusive man and 'Control' - see, my personal opinion has always been that Control was the only option that wasn't pure evil. Destruction destroys Synthetics, Synthesis forcefully performs massive homogenization over onto the universe. Both of those endings are horrible to me. But control... control is sacrifice. Shepard gives himself up to turn the Reapers into a force for good - a force that can not only directly help humanity but can also provide protection should there ever be war with synthetics. It preserves the Geth and everything you've accomplished. The only downside (and I don't personally consider it to be one) is that it was TIMs idea and TIM was evil. Dude was correct all along. Yes he was indoctrinated, and no - he could not have been the one to control the reapers. But stating all along that Control was the only option... I wound up agreeing with him and I've always felt that it was interesting.


All this Mass Effect angst. Mass Effect's fans have made me glad I've never played the series. :smalleek:

ME is a fantastic game, ME2 is nothing but hype for ME3, and ME3 is great aside from a few minor details and the terrible ending. The first game, if nothing else, is worth playing in my opinion (it's also my favorite, while many others like it the least so take my opinion with a grain of salt).

Also, Wild Arms 2 is amazing!

[Lethologica]

I don't think we have to believe/agree with him, but I personally find his argument fairly compelling. What I don't think would make sense is him agreeing with us.
Let's separate the discussion of "Is Starchild right" from the discussion of "Is it reasonable for Starchild to be stubborn."

To the former: Starchild doesn't actually make an argument, only assertions that fans have to support by argument after the fact, because Starchild never has to argue for his assertions, because Shepard never substantially disputes them. Would you mind stating the argument that you're supporting?

To the latter: The Big Setting Problem that supposedly necessitates the Reapers is inevitable organic-synthetic conflict. The central feature of this cycle that might affect Starchild's understanding of how to avoid inevitable organic-synthetic conflict is the Geth-Quarian relationship. If Starchild doesn't agree that the Geth-Quarian relationship proves him wrong, then offering the Destroy option violates Starchild's prime directive, because organic-synthetic harmony has not been achieved and Starchild has no reason to think that destroying himself will lead to it being achieved. If Starchild doesn't agree that there's anything significant about the Geth-Quarian relationship, then either offering any option violates Starchild's prime directive, or that directive was already fulfilled in previous cycles and he's just recycling civilization for gits and shiggles.

[GloatingSwine]

To the latter: The Big Setting Problem that supposedly necessitates the Reapers is inevitable organic-synthetic conflict. The central feature of this cycle that might affect Starchild's understanding of how to avoid inevitable organic-synthetic conflict is the Geth-Quarian relationship..

Which is never brought up and doesn't affect anything. No matter how you resolved that major plot thread, the ending hinges only on "you are so good at building macguffins, here are 1-3 macguffin powered options which have nothing to do with the game so far".

[ryuplaneswalker]

Oh I got one.

I like FFX-2 I think it is a good game, but there is something that drives me up a wall about it, and FFX.


The main character not having a real name..so the dialogue is a three ring circus of people trying to contort themselves to call him various titles.

[GolemsVoice]

What annoyed me the most about ME3's ending was how suddenly it all comes. Three games you're running all over the galaxy, doing all kind of things, and the Quarian/Geth conflict (which is the only major organics/synthetics conflict you see) is an important part, but not all that important. And suddenly you learn that this is the reason the reapers came? That was totally unexpected, and in my eyes devalued all the other stuff you did. Imagine if Star Wars suddely had decided that the fact that Anakin could pod race really well is the deciding factor, and the climax of the movie suddenly doesn't revolve around the Force, laser swords or Dark vs Light side of the force, but around pod racing. Pod racing was what it was all about all along.

[Gandariel]

Sacrifice: awesome game, got way too hard in the last missions of the campaign.
Like, you'd start and had one minute and limited resources before an enemy army with 4 times as many souls as you would attack you.
I checked a strategy guide online and it suggested stuff that was not only very cheesy, but something I'd never consider doing without help)

(Teleport to an island where the enemy can't reach you, and jump back and forth sniping at him while he's capping your only altar?)


Europa universalis 2: If I managed manually my merchants as England I could hold a monopoly in 6 markets, but I'd have to slow down time and keep track of it often.

The moment I turned it on? Instantly lose all monopolies except for my first one.

Path of exile: the fact that it becomes stupidly gory. Blood is fine, you're killing stuff after all..

But then, blood rivers! Carcasses stacked everywhere! Pentacles! Variety of stitched "failed experiments" enemies! (This is the part before the Piety fight)
And then hey, act 4 is finally out! Guess what? You go inside a huge monster and retrieve organs from another dude to fight the final boss?

I don't really have a problem with this kind of stuff. Diablo 2'encounter with Diablo felt SO cool, with the five seals, the whole screen vibrating.. The bones and blood and stuff felt right to set the theme.

And yeah, in Diablo 2 you were collecting Brain, Eye and Heart of a guy, but that made SENSE!
There was the whole thing about "you need the heart because it's the only one that was not tainted, the eye which can see the weakness, the brain which knows how to defeat him"

In PoE... It just feels pointless and excessive. Oh yeah, cart of cadavers! Naked woman with scorpion stingers! Go get the entrails of a dude! It'll be so hardcore!

[thirsting]

Hearthstone (or any other multi-player game really): Those other frigging people! :smalltongue:

Any empire/city/facility building game with multiple factions: Unique wonders. If any of your rivals finishes one even one turn before you, you get pretty much nothing at all. Centuries of hard work down the drain just because someone else was building the same thing. Grr!

[ryuplaneswalker]

Hearthstone (or any other multi-player game really): Those other frigging people! :smalltongue:

Any empire/city/facility building game with multiple factions: Unique wonders. If any of your rivals finishes one even one turn before you, you get pretty much nothing at all. Centuries of hard work down the drain just because someone else was building the same thing. Grr!

oh in any Free For all tactical game, if the NPCs so rarely go after each other!

[danzibr]

Star Ocean 2 doesn't have anything harder than Indy Unlimited Universe mode to beat up. :(
Phantasy Star 4 starts crashing around the time that you start hunting Sandworms for XP.
Wild ARMs 2 made Anastasia a real person instead of a legendary mashup of Jack, Rudy, and Cecilia from WA1. It would've been cool to get to the "meet Anastasia" phase of the game only to meet the three heroes from the first game.

My biggest gripe with Star Ocean 2 is the super rare bug which causes the game to crash (after or before? I think after) battles. Get through almost that whole damn pyramid only to have the game crash.

I'm not sure what you mean for Phantasy Star 4.

And I never played Wild ARMs (the original). I liked 2 a good bit.

KotR 1 Swoop racing.
I seem to recall disliking that mini-game. It had like... silly difficulty. I'd have to replay it to articulate my feeling better.

Oh I got one.

I like FFX-2 I think it is a good game, but there is something that drives me up a wall about it, and FFX.

The main character not having a real name..so the dialogue is a three ring circus of people trying to contort themselves to call him various titles.
And as a result we don't know how to pronounce Tidus.

[Aotrs Commander]

My biggest gripe with Star Ocean 2 is the super rare bug which causes the game to crash (after or before? I think after) battles. Get through almost that whole damn pyramid only to have the game crash.

Actually, that's a good point: save points as a concept, period. Double-especially on handhelds.

Real unlife intrudes. Sometimes, I have to stop playing a game to go do something or go out or not have a lot of time; and there's nothing more annoying that having to waste a load of time invested because the game designers arbitarily deiced you should not be allowed to save when you want - usually for the explicit reason of artifically extending game length by making you have to play through large sections again. In the old days, program and memory limitations were a factor. Now there's no excuse.




I seem to recall disliking that mini-game. It had like... silly difficulty. I'd have to replay it to articulate my feeling better.

I gave up last night. I managed Taris, I managed Tatooine, but I said "right, FRACK Manaan" and went and downloaded the "easy swoop mod." (The fact this is A Thing that exists and took no time at all to find I think says a lot.)




And as a result we don't know how to pronounce Tidus.

However much people may rag on FF XII for various things, at least they got one thing right; they named all the characters, did they not? (Though I thin it's a toss-up whether Ashe or Baltheir is actually the proper protagonist...)

[GloatingSwine]

All the minigames in KOTOR were crap. The turret game controlled like ass and was tedious and unrewarding, Pazaak was **** and the computer cheated its ass off, and swoop racing controlled like ass and was super simplistic.

At least you technically didn't have to do swoop racing after the first two, it was just for money.



Tales of Vesperia. blahblahblahTIDAL WAVEblahblahblahTIDAL WAVEblahblahblah...


Not the unskippable cutscenes before sudden difficulty spike boss fights?

I mean I know it was early in the 360 era and all, but people still should have known by then.

[Gnoman]

Oh I got one.

I like FFX-2 I think it is a good game, but there is something that drives me up a wall about it, and FFX.


The main character not having a real name..so the dialogue is a three ring circus of people trying to contort themselves to call him various titles.

That's the second most annoying thing about X-2. The most annoying thing? Whenever you get anything, instead of "Recieved X" or "Acquired X" or even "Got X", it reads "You Scored X!" which just feels so childish.

[Typewriter]

What annoyed me the most about ME3's ending was how suddenly it all comes. Three games you're running all over the galaxy, doing all kind of things, and the Quarian/Geth conflict (which is the only major organics/synthetics conflict you see) is an important part, but not all that important. And suddenly you learn that this is the reason the reapers came? That was totally unexpected, and in my eyes devalued all the other stuff you did. Imagine if Star Wars suddely had decided that the fact that Anakin could pod race really well is the deciding factor, and the climax of the movie suddenly doesn't revolve around the Force, laser swords or Dark vs Light side of the force, but around pod racing. Pod racing was what it was all about all along.

I remember reading that it was bad, but I didn't know the details. Then I got to the ending and was all like, "This is bad but not terrible". They plugged in the deus ex machine, Anderson died... it was a bit 'off' but not bad. Then Shepard passed out, luckily right on top of a magic space elevator that carried him up to space god. "Oh. That is quite bad" I started to see.


Actually, that's a good point: save points as a concept, period. Double-especially on handhelds.

Real unlife intrudes. Sometimes, I have to stop playing a game to go do something or go out or not have a lot of time; and there's nothing more annoying that having to waste a load of time invested because the game designers arbitarily deiced you should not be allowed to save when you want - usually for the explicit reason of artifically extending game length by making you have to play through large sections again. In the old days, program and memory limitations were a factor. Now there's no excuse.

However much people may rag on FF XII for various things, at least they got one thing right; they named all the characters, did they not? (Though I thin it's a toss-up whether Ashe or Baltheir is actually the proper protagonist...)

I get unreasonably upset when games require save points. Come on, we have enough memory in our games to allow for bigger more advanced save files - use it.


All the minigames in KOTOR were crap. The turret game controlled like ass and was tedious and unrewarding, Pazaak was **** and the computer cheated its ass off, and swoop racing controlled like ass and was super simplistic.

At least you technically didn't have to do swoop racing after the first two, it was just for money.

Not the unskippable cutscenes before sudden difficulty spike boss fights?

I mean I know it was early in the 360 era and all, but people still should have known by then.

I liked Pazaak by the time you're able to build a decent deck. Swoop racing I did enjoy - I always do every race on every playthrough - though I do feel like the mechanics were way too simple. The turrets section was pretty dumb though, I can agree with that.


That's the second most annoying thing about X-2. The most annoying thing? Whenever you get anything, instead of "Recieved X" or "Acquired X" or even "Got X", it reads "You Scored X!" which just feels so childish.

Everything in X-2 felt mildly childish, though I still enjoyed the story (and some other aspects). It was just sort of weird, like everything was tweaked a bit to make it over the top silly/weird. I didn't dislike the modifications, but I would have much preferred something closer to the tone of X.

[shadow_archmagi]

Can this Mass Effect discussion leave the thread?

Star Control 2: Those probes that are cosplaying Zubat by endlessly attacking you are meant to be annoying, but if you don't have a ship that is effective against them (and your capital ship isn't unless configured right, and your earth ships aren't, so early-game you may very well just not have anything to defend yourself with) you can get wrecked.

[Grif]

The loading screens in Pillars of Eternity. They really start to grate after awhile, ESPECIALLY in the capital city.

[cobaltstarfire]

Not the unskippable cutscenes before sudden difficulty spike boss fights?



Bayonetta has this problem in some areas. (though it may not be difficulty spike so much as I suck at games that center around building combos made up of particular strings of button presses)

I guess the stupid bike and rocket riding sections also count as crappy minigames, except you have to do them. Ontop of being annoying they also are way too long.

I can vaguely remember the card game and swoop racing in KotoR and never doing them again after the first time playing them!

[Douglas]

Star Control 2: Those probes that are cosplaying Zubat by endlessly attacking you are meant to be annoying, but if you don't have a ship that is effective against them (and your capital ship isn't unless configured right, and your earth ships aren't, so early-game you may very well just not have anything to defend yourself with) you can get wrecked.
An Earth Cruiser can fairly consistently beat one of those with around 10-12 lost crew. Two missiles at long range plus four point defense zaps does the job. I do sometimes have to reload for bad luck, because of the probe starting too close or one of the missiles missing, but most of the time I win and just have to transfer some crew from the main ship as insurance against meeting another one. And if all else fails, you can just hit the warp escape button.

[Alent]

My biggest gripe with Star Ocean 2 is the super rare bug which causes the game to crash (after or before? I think after) battles. Get through almost that whole damn pyramid only to have the game crash.

Never had that one, but I had several friends who did have it. Instead the boss data for the last boss of disc 1 got damaged somehow during my first play, leaving me unable to finish Disc 1 on my second play. It would refuse to go into battle when that boss swooped down, and only that boss. Eventually bought a second copy of the game. Star Ocean 2's encryption was horribly unreliable. :smalleek:

Trying to shield KO enemies in that game was pretty challenging, too. (I once shield KO'd Iselia Queen in the first ~5 seconds of the fight by sheer fluke, while trying to show off how hard the boss was. :smallbiggrin: )

Another gripe I had with that game was how nearly all Waza were useless. Air Slash and Majinken were literally Dias' best waza to such a degree that using anything else nerfed his damage output by a factor of 3. Air Slash was similarly powerful for Claude once upgraded, and nearly all of his Waza downgraded if you got their proficiency upgrades. (I forget the name, but there was one that before it's upgrade would nearly always flip an enemy into the air, that combo'd well with Dias' long range Air Slash, since Air Slash would hit an infinite number of times on enemies not grounded.)


I'm not sure what you mean for Phantasy Star 4.

There was a stack overflow error that would happen in some versions of the original Genesis version that would cause the game to freeze after 5 or 6 sandworms.


And I never played Wild ARMs (the original). I liked 2 a good bit.

WA2 was great, but it was eclipsed by how much of an inspired masterpiece the original was. Technologically, WA hasn't aged well, but it has a story that will suck you in and drag you through even the most infuriating puzzle. Definitely worth grabbing it on PSN.


Not the unskippable cutscenes before sudden difficulty spike boss fights?

I mean I know it was early in the 360 era and all, but people still should have known by then.

The bosses and their cutscenes weren't that bad, really, (I don't think I died to anything but the freaky stone monster in the dead city) I just loathed grade farming with a passion.

Another one:
Master of Orion 2. There was no reason to ever build anything but Scoutships with 2 of the best missiles you had, in massive quantities, and have them use the Janeway maneuver once out of ammo. (Suicidal self destruct collision) Game had a really nice shipbuilding system, but the exponentially increasing build times and effectiveness of 50+ ship suicide squads made anything more complicated a waste.

[Douglas]

Another one:
Master of Orion 2. There was no reason to ever build anything but Scoutships with 2 of the best missiles you had, in massive quantities, and have them use the Janeway maneuver once out of ammo. (Suicidal self destruct collision) Game had a really nice shipbuilding system, but the exponentially increasing build times and effectiveness of 50+ ship suicide squads made anything more complicated a waste.
How are you getting the command points and/or money for that many ships? I'll grant that small ships are more effective for their construction cost, but bigger ships are exponentially more effective for their command point maintenance cost, and the latter cost is the one that really matters past early game. And eventually technology shifts the construction cost effectiveness ratio too.

[theMycon]

Can this Mass Effect discussion leave the thread?
Second.


Star Control 2: Those probes that are cosplaying Zubat by endlessly attacking you are meant to be annoying, but if you don't have a ship that is effective against them (and your capital ship isn't unless configured right, and your earth ships aren't, so early-game you may very well just not have anything to defend yourself with) you can get wrecked.

I'd forgotten how annoying these were the first time.
Fwiffo's BUTT missiles wreck them at very low risk; and not getting Fwiffo just seems wrong.

[thorgrim29]

- I just replayed Deus Ex Human Revolution and while I love that game it just breaks suspension of disbelief a bit too much, both with the gameplay and the story. First I refuse to believe that a significant number of people would be willing to chop off their arms to get robot arms (brain implants and such, much more believable). Also, the fact that guards go on high alert when you shoot a guy in the head with a silenced pistol but don't notice if you taser him is weird. I get that they want to encourage you to not be a killing machine but still.

- Currently playing the AEO II campaigns, and goddamn the pathfinding sucked in that game (and the attack move order is just useless)

- I never tire of Mount & Blade but sieges are awful

- My favourite game in the last years is XCOM but the camera in it is pretty bad, and the RNG is a bit flawed

- The hitbox in Super Smash Bros on 64 is a bit wonky at times

-

[Anteros]

Undertale. My new favorite game of all time, but only really good if you walk into it without any awareness of its most important selling point, which is that...

you can get through it without ever killing anyone.

They advertise this fact in the official trailer though, so I'm not sure how much of a spoiler that really is.

[Alent]

How are you getting the command points and/or money for that many ships? I'll grant that small ships are more effective for their construction cost, but bigger ships are exponentially more effective for their command point maintenance cost, and the latter cost is the one that really matters past early game. And eventually technology shifts the construction cost effectiveness ratio too.

It's been years, so I can't remember exactly how, but as I recall, being psychic came with command point multipliers, and that there were early tech research you could shoot for to get your command points up quickish, and I pushed that up by expanding with reckless abandon, taking as many systems as possible, then rapidly producing missile scouts for defense once I had a feel for my neighbors and their war potential. I also prefer playing as Psychic subterranean lithovores so that I can colonize anything and mindrape planets from orbit. (Although that does take a decent size flagship)

On Easy and Normal, this pushes over pretty much anything, I never got into the harder modes because from there I started playing multiplayer with the friend that introduced me to the game and it crashed so often we both got sick of it.

[Douglas]

On Easy and Normal, this pushes over pretty much anything, I never got into the harder modes because from there I started playing multiplayer with the friend that introduced me to the game and it crashed so often we both got sick of it.
On Easy and Normal, the AI players are pushovers against anything even half way decent. I haven't gotten into multiplayer MoO2 myself, but I've read strategy discussion from a major community focused around it, and it was all quite emphatic that your battleships (the biggest available size that doesn't require late game tech) are what make or break your military. To the point where, if I'm remembering correctly, if you don't have a battleship by around turn 80 (varies with map size) you're doomed because your opponent will have a battleship and that battleship will trash your entire empire.

I don't personally know about that turn 80 deadline because I've never played multiplayer, but these guys considered Impossible difficulty single player to be a cakewalk, and my experience in Impossible single player fits the bigger is better idea quite well.

[Dienekes]

- I never tire of Mount & Blade but sieges are awful

I actually quite like the sieges.

But the tourneys were you randomly get a bow, that ticks me off. Mostly because I'm horrible at it.

[Alent]

On Easy and Normal, the AI players are pushovers against anything even half way decent. I haven't gotten into multiplayer MoO2 myself, but I've read strategy discussion from a major community focused around it, and it was all quite emphatic that your battleships (the biggest available size that doesn't require late game tech) are what make or break your military. To the point where, if I'm remembering correctly, if you don't have a battleship by around turn 80 (varies with map size) you're doomed because your opponent will have a battleship and that battleship will trash your entire empire.

I don't personally know about that turn 80 deadline because I've never played multiplayer, but these guys considered Impossible difficulty single player to be a cakewalk, and my experience in Impossible single player fits the bigger is better idea quite well.

What made me a believer in the missile-boats was my first Normal save, wherein I found myself boxed in a corner with just three star systems by Orion of all things. I kept a save from the start and had to keep starting over until I could use my three star systems to conquer Orion before one of the computers took it from me. The missile-boat strategy was one I found on GameFAQs and it let me beat the Orion Guardian early enough to stay relevant against the AIs.

That said, I'm also pretty sure we weren't number crunching hard enough to have a turn 80 battleship, and we're talking 2003~2004 here, so my memory isn't to be taken as perfect gospel by any stretch. Our multiplayer games always ended the same way: crash to desktop. It was so common that we just gave up on the game. Were there ever any fan patches to address the crashes?

[Geno9999]

Super Mario Maker: "I swear to the mushroom gods if I see another level with ten Lakitus on screen at once, I'm throwing my gamepad out the window!"

Borderlands: The Pre-sequel: The moon doesn't have varied environments. Who knew.

Borderlands 2: When my enemy on fire: he casually continues firing his gun. When I'm on fire: I am suddenly made of paper and napkins.

Payday 2: "Yes, Bain, I know, Bain; I know that this is a wonderful flat with a fantastic view, and that we should buy one of our own sometime with the gold we're stealing from the corrupt senator because you keep telling me every minute for the past half hour!!!" and "Another $5 DLC? Haven't they milked the cash cow en- Oh wow that's a cool mask, sold."

Terraria: I nearly spent an entire day building a flying ship fortress, only for it to fall prey to the ever-respawning wyverns.

[Douglas]

What made me a believer in the missile-boats was my first Normal save, wherein I found myself boxed in a corner with just three star systems by Orion of all things. I kept a save from the start and had to keep starting over until I could use my three star systems to conquer Orion before one of the computers took it from me. The missile-boat strategy was one I found on GameFAQs and it let me beat the Orion Guardian early enough to stay relevant against the AIs.
I think I know the one you're talking about, and that's more taking advantage of a flaw in the Guardian's design and combat AI, not missiles themselves being so good. Actually, missiles are pretty good early on, they just lose effectiveness as technology and fleet sizes advance. And for the point this discussion started at, fighting the Guardian at low tech levels is a special case where smaller ships limit how much you lose each combat turn because the Guardian will hit you with so much overkill per shot that nothing you could possibly build would survive even a single volley.


That said, I'm also pretty sure we weren't number crunching hard enough to have a turn 80 battleship, and we're talking 2003~2004 here, so my memory isn't to be taken as perfect gospel by any stretch. Our multiplayer games always ended the same way: crash to desktop. It was so common that we just gave up on the game. Were there ever any fan patches to address the crashes?
There is a fan made patch, available from here (http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/download.html), and the FAQ (http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/2005/01/moo2v140-patch-faq.html) for it lists several triggers for crashes, some of which are fixed by it. Even for the ones that it doesn't fix, simply knowing what they are should help avoid them. I imagine retreating from the edge of the combat map might be a common one for someone using missiles a lot, for example.


Borderlands 2: When my enemy on fire: he casually continues firing his gun. When I'm on fire: I am suddenly made of paper and napkins.
Borderlands 2 developers: How do we make New Game++ challenging? I know, let's give every last mook in the game enough hp to take 5 minutes to kill. Each. Brilliant!

[Alent]

I think I know the one you're talking about, and that's more taking advantage of a flaw in the Guardian's design and combat AI, not missiles themselves being so good. Actually, missiles are pretty good early on, they just lose effectiveness as technology and fleet sizes advance. And for the point this discussion started at, fighting the Guardian at low tech levels is a special case where smaller ships limit how much you lose each combat turn because the Guardian will hit you with so much overkill per shot that nothing you could possibly build would survive even a single volley.

I know the self-destruct for the ships also mattered, because once the missiles were gone, the ships doubled as large missiles, but it never seemed to be limited to just that special case. (as a perk, I also never had to deal with technologically mismatched fleets!)

Some of these bugs in that patch FAQ look very familiar, so this may fix it. Maybe when I wear down through my backlog of games I'll pull dosbox out, go back in to MoO2 and see how things behave.

[huttj509]

Mentions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution reminded me.

For the director's cut, I like the commentary, but there's no indications as to when commentary starts. and if you enter another invisible zone of commentary, it overcuts what you were listening to. So if you're interested in the commentary it's kinda "wander round blindly, then don't touch anything until the talking is done."

[Geno9999]

Borderlands 2 developers: How do we make New Game++ challenging? I know, let's give every last mook in the game enough hp to take 5 minutes to kill. Each. Brilliant!

Oh, we forgot the part where you have to use the debuff element in order to cut that 5 minutes down to a reasonable time... the debuff element that doesn't work on all enemies (especially but reasonably enemies that are already the "Slag whatever" enemy,) and lasts only what, 6 seconds?

Also, anyone one carrying a rocket launcher. If Handsome Jack really wanted to stop me, all he'd have to do was unleash a horde of RPG loaders.

[Landis963]

Mentions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution reminded me.

For the director's cut, I like the commentary, but there's no indications as to when commentary starts. and if you enter another invisible zone of commentary, it overcuts what you were listening to. So if you're interested in the commentary it's kinda "wander round blindly, then don't touch anything until the talking is done."

I'm wondering why they didn't implement selectable nodes of dev-commentary a la Half-Life, or Portal. That way you can pick and choose what you want to listen to.

[Vitruviansquid]

God, I hate it when games I enjoy have seriously weird DLC direction.

Xcom is a prime example. It should've been very VERY VERY obvious to think about what makes Xcom cool, and add DLC to expand on that. We want new alien species, we want new technologies, we want new random maps to play on.

Instead, we get a small mini-story in Slingshot . Nobody wants that. Nobody was asking for Xcom to have a mini-story. Xcom was cool narratively because it allowed people to experience *emergent* stories from the chaos of having improbable victory and moments of crisis built into the game's progression.

We also got bonus skins. Again, nobody cares about that. We already have all the soldiers in future-guy-armor, we didn't need to pay 5 dollars for more future-guy-armor. Just look at League of Legends or any MOBA, the most loved skins aren't the ones that give more of the same, they're the ones that make things wildly different.

[shadow_archmagi]

God, I hate it when games I enjoy have seriously weird DLC direction.

Xcom is a prime example. It should've been very VERY VERY obvious to think about what makes Xcom cool, and add DLC to expand on that. We want new alien species, we want new technologies, we want new random maps to play on.

Instead, we get a small mini-story in Slingshot . Nobody wants that. Nobody was asking for Xcom to have a mini-story. Xcom was cool narratively because it allowed people to experience *emergent* stories from the chaos of having improbable victory and moments of crisis built into the game's progression.

We also got bonus skins. Again, nobody cares about that. We already have all the soldiers in future-guy-armor, we didn't need to pay 5 dollars for more future-guy-armor. Just look at League of Legends or any MOBA, the most loved skins aren't the ones that give more of the same, they're the ones that make things wildly different.

Or Shadows of Middle Mordor's absurd rune packs and skin packs.

[Forbiddenwar]

Mass Effect 2
I enjoyed the first game and was really excited about the second one. But as I played I kept feeling like some of the best content was in the DLC. So I put it down until I could afford the DLC.






Yeah, I bet you heard this story before. Four years later and . . . yep the DLC for mass effect 2 still costs $60.

So I still have not played mass effect 2.

[shadow_archmagi]

Hey Borderlands Presequel, why does the grinder have a fail chance? Who said "This game would be better if sometimes your hopes and dreams were crushed"

[dragonsamurai77]

Pretty much anything by CAVE, where there's no real distinction between playing for survival and playing for score, since you need to play for score to get enough extends even if you're just going for a normal 1CC. I'm probably a bit biased, though, since I only have access to the iOS ports of many of their games, where the rapid shot changes often required to score well are very difficult to pull off.

[GolemsVoice]

Speaking of Mass Effect, I always found it really strange how in ME1 the Council just goes "Ah, a voice recording incriminating one of our best agents. I'm sure nobody would ever fake that. It's not like this is the future. GUILTY!"

[Legato Endless]

Star Craft 2: The reverse Schrödinger's cat approach to your story decisions, which instead of having a set canon, or incorporating the decisions, instead all descent into Quantum Uncertainty and are never referenced again so no one feels invalidated by the plot points that didn't matter. This is probably the worst possible way to resolve branching I've ever seen. Also, Starcraft 2's new characters, plot, retcons, tone, essentially the general narrative. Which for most other games, might be more than inconsequential.

Analogue: A Hate Story: The inability to skip text. Actually, the inability to skip 'unread' text in any game.

Skyrim: Shopkeepers' limited money. Skyrim has a lot of minor flaws, but this one stands out for just confusing me why the dev team even thought this would be a good idea at conception. Why would you limit my ability to sell items back to people when 90% of the gameplay involves digging loot out of dungeons? Then have their treasuries refresh after few days, so I have to do is wait 20 seconds while the game loads after going forward a week and continuing as normal? Is this just meant to troll me with tedium?

Valkyria Chronicles: The game is too swingy tactically, and probably shouldn't feature grinding. Also units don't have nearly enough differentiation.

Wild Arms 3? 4?: It's bizarrely easier to complete the game hauling around your cleric dead than keeping them alive.

Viewtiful Joe: The second to last Boss fight is based off a complete gimmick the game in no way foreshadows.

Xcom: Enemy Unknown: Once you've stabilized yourself in the vanilla edition, the game's a cakewalk. A popular mod fixes this, but adds reams of unnecessary encounters. Also the main DLC gave us a bad fanfic. That's...not really why we play this guys.


Speaking of Mass Effect, I always found it really strange how in ME1 the Council just goes "Ah, a voice recording incriminating one of our best agents. I'm sure nobody would ever fake that. It's not like this is the future. GUILTY!"

The whole trial subplot really doesn't make any sense. First you accuse Saran based off...a hallucination with no actual evidence. This is meant to sound reasonable when Shep thunders with righteous indigniation. Then yeah, you present a voice recording that couldn't be fabricated. And then he's convicted in absentia with no chance to defend himself.

On a different Mass Effect note, Shep's rebirth in ME2. It's a cool, cinematic opening. Conceptually, it dovetails well with Shep's messianic figure. Except...nothing is ever done with it. It just happens. In fact, it's thematically irreverent, if not totally empty. It just seems to exist as an excuse for changing your class for the new game.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Why would you limit my ability to sell items back to people when 90% of the gameplay involves digging loot out of dungeons?

Western RPGs in general have gigantic quality of life issues when it comes to Inventory, Inventory management and selling off junk IMO. It is one of the things that makes me almost refuse to touch the genre.

[Alent]

Western RPGs in general have gigantic quality of life issues when it comes to Inventory, Inventory management and selling off junk IMO. It is one of the things that makes me almost refuse to touch the genre.

Amen and ditto. I don't consider this a "minor gripe" tho', this is more of a major gripe along the lines of "That developer is seriously trying to punish me for playing his game, why does he even deserve my money?"

[Anteros]

Hey Borderlands Presequel, why does the grinder have a fail chance? Who said "This game would be better if sometimes your hopes and dreams were crushed"

I don't know about that. I think it really is better if things like that have a chance to fail. I had the un-patched version for a while with no fail chance and the ability to grind legendary equipment with 100% success rate and it really sucked a lot of fun out of the game.

[GolemsVoice]

Star Craft 2: The reverse Schrödinger's cat approach to your story decisions, which instead of having a set canon, or incorporating the decisions, instead all descent into Quantum Uncertainty and are never referenced again so no one feels invalidated by the plot points that didn't matter. This is probably the worst possible way to resolve branching I've ever seen. Also, Starcraft 2's new characters, plot, retcons, tone, essentially the general narrative. Which for most other games, might be more than inconsequential.


Technically, there IS one true story. Raynor sided with Tosh and rescued the colonists. This is insofar inconsequential as you never see any of them again, but Tosh survives and Hanson lives.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Speaking of Mass Effect, I always found it really strange how in ME1 the Council just goes "Ah, a voice recording incriminating one of our best agents. I'm sure nobody would ever fake that. It's not like this is the future. GUILTY!"

Yeah there's a lot of early-installment weird stuff in ME, but that is by far the most confusing.


In a different Mass Effect note, Shep's rebirth in ME2. It's a cool, cinematic opening. Conceptually, it dovetails well with Shep's messianic figure. Except...nothing is ever done with it. It just happens. In fact, it's thematically irreverent, if not totally empty. It just seems to exist as an excuse for changing your class for the new game.

A quasi-artificial nature a significant secondary contributor to Shep's angst (after "everyone I make a connection with keeps dying") as of ME3, and the fact that Shep's significantly cybernetic gets brought up a couple of times as well (Rannoch, two or three different DLC plots, ME3's ending). The fact that Shep literally owes their life to Cerberus also helps keep ME2 on the rails, and finally if Shep wasn't basically re-engineered in a lab, who would be the antagonist of the best DLC in the trilogy?

[Squark]

X-wing Miniatures: Not a personal gripe, but one from friends- Said friends really do not like that you can't boost or barrel roll of the board or over an obstacle. Also, the hwk-290's dial.

The Sims 3: Lack of control over the memories features. I'd rather really like to be able to enable it solely for my family, or select an only important memories function. Holidays are also generally nuisances. And the celebrity disgrace system is at times puritanical and occasionally insane (Disgrace for pregnancy out of wedlock? Kind of at odds with the game's generally lassez-faire attitude to sex, but okay. Disgrace for having sex with an Occult*? Downright bizzare given they're not otherwise discriminated against. Disgrace for one Occult celebrity having sex with another occult of the same type? ... What)

*Witch, Werewolf, Vampire, Fairy, Genie, Ghost, etc.

Dark Souls: The inability to tell if I can't see a summon sign/am not getting summoned for co-op because nobody is nearby, or because I'm overwhelmed. Also, the camera interacting poorly with boss fights (*cough* Capra demon, *cough*).

Star Wars: Armada: Player-related, admittedly. Everybody chooses the same objectives. Every time. Why can't someone pick fleet ambush or minefields or hyperspace assault instead of superior positions every other time.

[GloatingSwine]

Valkyria Chronicles: The game is too swingy tactically, and probably shouldn't feature grinding. Also units don't have nearly enough differentiation.


More importantly, Valkyria Chronicles 3 never got translated.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Technically, there IS one true story. Raynor sided with Tosh and rescued the colonists. This is insofar inconsequential as you never see any of them again, but Tosh survives and Hanson lives.

If you side with Nova against Tosh in WoL, she has slightly different dialogue in HotS. A "just business, nothing personal" attitude. I'm guessing that the time Matt mentions "our associate Tosh" is also removed. Unless it's been confirmed by Word of God or something.

[GolemsVoice]

Sure, yea I can say that we do say that the A choice that you made, was the canon decision. So, in terms of the SC canon, Raynor sided with Tosh and Raynor helped the colonists against Selendis.

That was Christ Metzen during a lore panel. It has, but that's like the weakest form of confirmation ever. They said that this is the canon, but they won't ever touch anything related to it, so it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

[Raimun]

Metal Gear Solid V: They should have sticked to the health bar and the rations that replenish it. Snake is made of iron, damn it! Also, holding a ration gives you the ability to cheat death. Everyone knows that.

Borderlands: Claptraps. They are annoying and repetitive. I wish I could shoot/punch/smash with a buzz axe every single one of them. And they would stay destroyed. Their absence would impact you in no adverse way whatsoever. Also, not enough guns. Seriously. I kind of expected there to be more of them.

Uncharted-games: Somehow the final showdowns never really have that KA-POW that the rest of the game offer. Especially Uncharted 3.

Batman Arkham-games: There is no button which just makes Batman say: "I'm Batman." I've checked. I won't play any other Arkham-games until they've fixed that. That goes for Arkham Horror as well and that's a board game and has nothing to do with Batman. I'm also considering never playing Devil May Cry 3 again, because one character is named Arkham and that would only remind me of man's inhumanity against fellow man.

Metal Gear Rising: Manual, minute, aimed, vertical cuts in Blade Mode. They are so much more harder to get right than the corresponding horizontal cuts. Those I can do, no problem but vertical? No thanks, if I can avoid that.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The weird first person/third person hybrid. Look, buddy. You can do one or the other or better yet, leave the option for both of them. And you should be able to freely toggle between them. You don't make the player walk, sneak around and jump in first person and then, when you do a close combat take down or press against a wall, you suddenly switch to third person. I mean, what's up with that? Oh, and the battery should recharge all the way over time. (Yeah, no gripes about the boss fights. They were actually fun.)

Dragon's Dogma: The Dark Arisen-expansion. Okay, this is not a minor gripe. The whole thing is pointless and dull. But it's still a minor gripe since you can play the actual game without ever going to The Stupid Island. The actual game is still excellent.

Mario-games: Why doesn't he have a gun? Contra-dude is the hero Mushroom Kingdom needs and deserves and you can play as him in the fan game, Super Mario Crossover.

Bioware-RPGs: No one cares about their original settings/rules systems. They should forget about those and get back to D&D and Star Wars. Now. In single player.

Most Every Game, Ever: The inability of or the difficulty experienced by the world saviour/action hero/super soldier/chosen warrior to cross obstacles or terrain that every world saviour/action hero/super soldier/chosen warrior should be able to cross with ease.

[Landis963]

Bioware-RPGs: No one cares about their original settings/rules systems. They should forget about those and get back to D&D and Star Wars. Now. In single player.

Hey, I cared about Mass Effect!

[shadow_archmagi]

Hey, I cared about Mass Effect!

Yeah I think Dragon Age and Mass Effect were both really well received, on the whole.

[Aotrs Commander]

The phenominal amount of boiling rage about Mass Effect 3's ending shows that people did care. A lot.

I recall having seen an awful lot of people wantinga Jade Empire 2, for that matter.

(And personally, D&D lost me after 3.x. Maybe if they did Pathfinder (IE/PoE-style) RPG set on Golarion... But otherwise... Come to that, Star Wars has dumped the best bits of itself with the new Disney continuity, too.)

Actually, I don't think I can even trust Bioware much anymore in the current AAA climate, now they're EA wearing unconvincing mask.

[ryuplaneswalker]

So I started playing Pheonix Write vs Professor Layton and I love it.

But Layton and Luke look off in 3D animations.

[Landis963]

Actually, I don't think I can even trust Bioware much anymore in the current AAA climate, now they're EA wearing unconvincing mask.

Hey, EA knows it pulled a bit too hard on the leash with Bioware, and their backing off allowed DAI to have a Solas/Lavellan romance quest, so there's still hope.

No one got my tense joke...:(

[tensai_oni]

More importantly, Valkyria Chronicles 3 never got translated.

Never got officially translated you mean. There's a fan patch.

And speaking of VC3 and minor gripes in games we love - the main antagonist group of the game makes no sense, the writing takes a sharp plunge in quality whenever they are around, and their leader is supposed to be a charismatic, tragic anti-villain but comes off as a delusional fool completely disattached from reality but it's okay because "he has a vision".

[Legato Endless]

That was Christ Metzen during a lore panel. It has, but that's like the weakest form of confirmation ever. They said that this is the canon, but they won't ever touch anything related to it, so it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

Pretty much.


And speaking of VC3 and minor gripes in games we love - the main antagonist group of the game makes no sense, the writing takes a sharp plunge in quality whenever they are around, and their leader is supposed to be a charismatic, tragic anti-villain but comes off as a delusional fool completely disattached from reality but it's okay because "he has a vision".

Speaking of writing issues, the first VC's mediations about racism is massively hypocritical and all kinds of problematic.


So I started playing Pheonix Write vs Professor Layton and I love it.
But Layton and Luke look off in 3D animations.

Layton just isn't a good character. The creator's whole spiel about how he took Phoenix and worked on his 'flaws' to create Layton, but he never really understood what actually makes Phoenix work as a character, and so we're left with one of the dullest great detectives in all of fiction. Layton doesn't have much in the way of flaws beyond Child Services needing to take away his children thanks to his 'parenting', and he isn't well rounded beyond his utterly generic tragic past. More importantly, the games' endings have grown ever more obnoxious as the series goes on.

[Wardog]

Bioware-RPGs: No one cares about their original settings/rules systems. They should forget about those and get back to D&D and Star Wars. Now. In single player.

I've had enough of your disengenious assertions!



Most Every Game, Ever: The inability of or the difficulty experienced by the world saviour/action hero/super soldier/chosen warrior to cross obstacles or terrain that every world saviour/action hero/super soldier/chosen warrior should be able to cross with ease.

Even worse if its an obstabcle that the average 5-year-old child should be able to climb over.

[huttj509]

Layton just isn't a good character. The creator's whole spiel about how he took Phoenix and worked on his 'flaws' to create Layton, but he never really understood what actually makes Phoenix work as a character, and so we're left with one of the dullest great detectives in all of fiction. Layton doesn't have much in the way of flaws beyond Child Services needing to take away his children thanks to his 'parenting', and he isn't well rounded beyond his utterly generic tragic past. More importantly, the games' endings have grown ever more obnoxious as the series goes on.

Um, Layton has no children for CPS to remove. He's more Luke's "cool uncle" who takes him along on adventures.

[Alent]

Never got officially translated you mean. There's a fan patch.

And speaking of VC3 and minor gripes in games we love - the main antagonist group of the game makes no sense, the writing takes a sharp plunge in quality whenever they are around, and their leader is supposed to be a charismatic, tragic anti-villain but comes off as a delusional fool completely disattached from reality but it's okay because "he has a vision".

And that fan patch is glorious.

I disagree on Calamity Raven making no sense, but they absolutely needed better writing. (I've flat out forgotten most of the story as straight up unmemorable... :smallfrown: ) I kept getting the idea that only Zig actually believed in "Dahau's dream", but that they didn't know how to properly demonstrate the dream was a lie Dahau used to brainwash Darcsens into helping him achieve revenge for his dead wife. (At some point I'm almost positive that Lydia called Dahau out on it and nearly got killed for doing so.)

For me, the worst annoyance of VC3 was Riela. When your designated heroine's story is less interesting than the 80+ year old chain smoking mama-san turned RPG carrying guerrilla, you have a problem.

While we're on VC... I always felt like VC2 squandered the potential of the story they had by putting the events in the wrong order and then scuttled the ship by going back to the school at the end of every mission. The story isn't bad, but putting it in the wrong order and running halfway across Galia every mission instead of running a "Camp in the field" just made the story feel implausible despite having good potential.

[Raimun]

I've had enough of your disengenious assertions!


I'm sorry. I'll try to be less disingenuous in the future.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Undertale - Great writing. Amazing soundtrack. Decent game. Toby didn't do a good job of organically introducing concepts used for bossfights, and a couple of the more straightforward ones are just straight-up endurance runs, you have to keep dodging and can pick whatever non-fight option you wish until the boss simply runs through all their dialogue. But there are good bosses, the penultimate Neutral/Pacifist boss and the two Genocide bosses are great (though NEO should've been a tough boss as well... *sigh*). Also, I think blind runs are overrated, don't tell me what happens but give me a guide on what's required for pacifist.

[Legato Endless]

Um, Layton has no children for CPS to remove. He's more Luke's "cool uncle" who takes him along on adventures.

You're forgetting Flora, the young girl with implied separation anxiety he inherited whom he abandons for long periods and who has trailed the duo alone on multiple occasions. Layton also has a son from the Mystery Brothers game, who didn't turn out mentally well either.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Layton just isn't a good character. The creator's whole spiel about how he took Phoenix and worked on his 'flaws' to create Layton, but he never really understood what actually makes Phoenix work as a character, and so we're left with one of the dullest great detectives in all of fiction. Layton doesn't have much in the way of flaws beyond Child Services needing to take away his children thanks to his 'parenting', and he isn't well rounded beyond his utterly generic tragic past. More importantly, the games' endings have grown ever more obnoxious as the series goes on.

Eh he is okay, he has his flaws, and really that creator is full of it.

Pheonix's main flaw is being a tremendous Doormat.

However, I was mostly referring to the character models Layton's head looks really goofy in this game.

[cooldes]

the ranger is way too underpowered in DnD(also way of 4 elems Monk)

[Starbuck_II]

More importantly, Valkyria Chronicles 3 never got translated.

I counter with, Shining Force 3 part 2 and 3 was never translated.
As well as, Langrisser 3, 4, 5, and 6 (wish they got translated as I loved the Warsong series).

[Avilan the Grey]

Thing is (not having read most of this thread so this might have been said already) that the more you love a game, the bigger the "minor" gripes can be.
Case in point: Bethesda. How about 1000 bugs? How about a level system that is not only counter-inituative, but also simply doesn't work as intended but should be ignored and treated as if it was meant to work the opposite of what it does (which is how it works). That's Oblivion for you.
Just as an example.